The Caribbean · Volume 45, The Arepa Coast, the Hallaca and the Titoté
Pabellón criollo
Venezuela, and often called its national dish
Illustration
- Time
- Hands on 2 hours · Waiting 8 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 92 sources in the brief
The four parts on the plate are read by many Venezuelans as the three continents and a flag, which is a popular reading and not a history. Agenda Cultural CCS, a Caracas culture site, reports that it was recognised as Venezuelan intangible heritage in 2019. The amounts come from three Venezuelan cooks' pages, one for the beef, one for the beans and one for the plantains, so the proportions between the four parts are theirs together and not one household's.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 2 hours, plus overnight to soak the beans.
Ingredients
- 1kg flank or skirt of beef
- 1 large onion, for the carne mechada
- 8 cloves garlic, for the carne mechada
- 1 red bell pepper, for the carne mechada
- 1 green bell pepper, for the carne mechada
- 20 ají dulce, for the carne mechada
- 240ml (1 cup) tomato, peeled, for the carne mechada
- 500g black beans, soaked overnight
- 1 large onion, for the beans
- 4 cloves garlic, for the beans
- 1 small sweet red pepper, for the beans
- 1 tsp cumin, ground, for the beans
- 240ml (1 cup) white rice
- 2 ripe plantains, sliced lengthways
- for frying oil, for frying the plantains
- to taste salt
Method
- Boil the beef until it shreds; keep the broth. Shred it and cook it down in a sofrito of the onion, garlic, red and green bell peppers and ají dulce, with the tomato, until it is a glossy, saucy mass.
- Cook the soaked beans in plain water until tender, then fry a sofrito of the onion, garlic, red pepper and cumin and stir it through, and cook until they are thick.
- Cook the rice plain in salted water.
- Fry the plantain slices in oil until dark gold at the edges.
- Plate the four parts side by side.
What a modern chef changes
Each quarter done as if it were the dish
Rung 5
Method
- Braise the beef whole in its broth for 3 hours at 90 degrees in the oven, shred it, then fry the shreds in the sofrito until the edges catch; the catch is the flavour.
- Cook the beans with a piece of smoked pork fat and a spoon of papelón, and finish them with a splash of the beef broth.
- Fry the plantain in two stages, low to soften, high to colour, and salt it hot.
- A fried egg on top makes it a pabellón a caballo. On horseback.