Recipes with white corn arepas

4 recipes that use white corn arepas, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Calentado, takes 20 minutes. It is most often cooked with cumin, garlic and spring onion.

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Calentado

Calentado literally means reheated, and that is the whole idea: the rice and beans left from yesterday's lunch are fried together in a hot pan with hogao until they catch and crisp at the edges. In Antioquia it is the breakfast of champions, topped with a runny fried egg and served with a corn arepa, a slice of white cheese and hot chocolate, and city cafés across Colombia now put it on weekend menus. This version is meat-free, using beans cooked without pork. Leftover rice needs care: it must have been cooled within an hour or two of cooking and kept in the fridge no more than a day, and it should be reheated until piping hot all through. Stirring constantly is what turns it to mush, so press it into the pan and let a crust form before turning. Chef's tip: add a few spoonfuls of the bean broth; it binds the rice and helps the crispy bits form.

20 min

Colombian Breakfast & Brunch

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Chorizo santarrosano

Santa Rosa de Cabal, on the road to the hot springs in Risaralda, is lined with grills where thin, tightly linked pork chorizos sizzle over charcoal and are sold with a small white arepa and half a lime. They are leaner and finer than Spanish chorizo, with no paprika: just pork, a little fat, spring onion, garlic, cumin and a touch of coriander, so they taste fresh and herby, with a smoky edge from the coals. Squeeze over the lime, wrap a piece in the arepa and eat it standing up. Making them at home needs natural casings and a sausage stuffer or a piping bag, and a night in the fridge for the flavours to settle. Overstuffing is the classic problem: tight casings burst on the grill, so fill them firmly but leave a little give. Chef's tip: keep the meat and fat very cold, even half-frozen, while you mince and mix; warm fat smears and the sausages turn crumbly instead of juicy.

85 min

Colombian Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Fritanga

Weekend fritanga is Bogotá's answer to a mixed grill, eaten standing at counters in the Siete de Agosto and Restrepo neighbourhoods or brought home on a big tray to share. Everything is pork or fried: chicharrón of pork belly with a blistered, crunchy skin, juicy pork chorizos, slices of rice-filled morcilla (blood sausage), little papa criolla potatoes, sweet plantain and griddled arepas, all eaten with fingers or toothpicks and dipped in sharp, watery ají. A fritanga is about contrast, so don't drown it in sauces: the lime and ají cut the richness. The common error is frying the belly straight from raw; it needs to cook gently in water first, which renders the fat and tenderises the meat before the skin crisps in its own drippings. Chef's tip: buy morcilla and chorizo from a Latin butcher and check the labels if you need the platter gluten free, as some sausages contain wheat.

100 min

Colombian Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Bandeja paisa

Bandeja paisa is the farmhouse feast of Antioquia and the coffee region around Medellín, served on an oval platter so big it barely fits on the table. This is a pork dish: crisp chicharrón (fried pork belly) and chorizo sit next to red beans, white rice, seasoned minced beef, a fried egg, ripe plantain, a small arepa and avocado. Paisas eat it for a long Sunday lunch, and restaurants in Medellín serve it every day. It looks like a lot of work, but most parts can be made ahead and finished together. The mistake most people make is frying the pork belly too hot from the start; it needs to simmer in its own fat first, or the outside burns before the inside turns tender. Chef's tip: cook the beans a day ahead; they thicken and taste better, and the day itself is then only frying.

190 min

Colombian Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Calentado

Chorizo santarrosano

Fritanga

Bandeja paisa

Goes well with white corn arepas