Beginner
Brazilian
Pão de Queijo (Cheese Bread)
Source: Traditional
45 min690 kcal
VegetarianGluten-free
Arepa
Precooked maize flour, water and salt patted into discs and griddled until they blister — split and buttered, or stuffed with cheese, and eaten at breakfast and again at supper.
Source
Recipe by Colombian home kitchens · 🏺 Traditional · Six regions and six different larders — maize and cheese in the mountains, coconut and fish on the Caribbean coast, and a pot of soup on the stove almost everywhere.
Colombian · maize flatbread — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article covers the Colombian and Venezuelan arepa together and confirms the ground maize dough, the disc shape, the griddling and the stuffed and split-and-filled variants. Quantities and the crack test are this book's own.
Watch it being made · 3 videos
⏱ 30 min🍽 4 servings🔥 240 kcal🇨🇴 Colombia
HalalVegetarianGluten-freeNut-free
Steps
Stir the salt into the warm water, then pour in the flour in a steady stream while mixing with your hand.
💡 Flour into water, not water into flour. The other way round gives dry lumps that never hydrate.
Add the melted butter and knead 3 minutes until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Rest it 5 minutes.
Test it: roll a ball and press it flat. If the edges crack, work in another 2 tbsp of water and test again.
💡 Cracked edges are the only thing that goes wrong with arepas, and more water always fixes it. Do this test every time.
Divide into 8 and pat each into a disc 1 cm thick and 10 cm across, smoothing the edges with wet fingers.
Griddle in a lightly oiled pan over medium heat, 6 minutes a side, until spotted brown and hollow-sounding.
Split each one through the side while hot, butter it and pack in the cheese so it melts.
💡 Tips
- Arepa de queso has the cheese kneaded into the dough instead; arepa de huevo, from the coast, has a whole egg fried inside it.
- Colombia and Venezuela both claim the arepa and both are right — it predates either country by centuries.
- Cooked arepas keep three days in the fridge and reheat on a dry pan better than they do in a microwave.
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