Making Arepas

I have a friend whose parents are East Indian. She married a Columbian. She has learned to cook a few Columbian dishes from her inlaws. She came to visit us a couple of weekends ago, and was going to make arepas for us one night. Unfortunately, the visit was so jammed pack with a wedding and sight seeing that she did not get the chance. Therefore, I took it upon myself to make them a few days after her visit.

We had gone to a Latin American grocery store in Oakville, specializing in products from South and Central America. We went looking for the Mexican hot sauce we used to put on chips or Doritos when we all lived in Monterrey. My friend pointed out various Columbian products, and I bought a package of white corn flour, along with the hot sauce. My mother's family is from Trinidad, and we have a few recipes that use corn flour as well.

My friend makes cheese filled arepas for her husband. We had bought mozzarella cheese to put inside. I think I might try a stronger cheese next time. The texture of the arepas was what I expected, and the cheese was nice and gooey. However, store bought mozzarella really has no flavour. Essentially, these were an excuse to eat the salsa verde we bought.

Arepas are super simple to make. I fried them in some butter on the stove. It would be very easy to substitute the cheese for any number of fillings. In my head, I was thinking how this could be an easy version of a tamale or pastelle (Trindadian version of a tamale). Instead of steaming them in corn husks or banana leaves, just stuff them and fry them up.

This is the corn flour I used. The instructions on the package are easy to follow. The water gets absorbed very quickly, but you need to add enough to make a dough. Just stop short of the dough becoming sticky. For about 2 1/2 cups of flour I added a little less than 2 cups of water. Then, I kneaded the dough until it came together without crumbling.

I added a bit of shredded cheddar cheese into the dough, hence the orange flecks. I was following a recipe I found online specifically for cheese arepas. This was enough to make 8 balls of dough, about the size of a squash ball.

I rolled out each ball into a flat disk. I put some mozzarella slices on top of one disk, and topped it with a second. I made sure the edges were sealed.

 

After melting some butter in a skillet, I fried up each arepa until it was browned on each side. It took about four minutes a side.

My arepas ended up golden brown, but you could cook them a liitle longer.

The result was a gooey cheese filled arepa. My son liked it. My daughter refused to try it. My parents thought it was bland, but my mom said it was similar to something her mother made in Trinidad. It was yummy with the salsa verde. Next time, maybe some fresh goat's cheese.

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