Crispy on the outside and soft inside, arepas are a delicious food made from corn. The base of the arepa is a corn cake made from pre-cooked cornmeal. The cake is much thicker than a corn tortilla and it's texture is firmer. Arepas are easy to split open and fill with your favorite vegetables, meats or cheeses.

Arepas originated in pre-Columbus South America, in the areas that are now the countries of Venezuela and Columbia. This food is eaten as a snack food or as a full meal and arepas are still popular to this day. I had my first arepa in a Venezuelan restaurant in NYC. It was love at first bite!

Arepas are a great vehicle for using up any leftovers in your home. I used leftover carnitas from my freezer today to make a delicious and very fast lunch. Along with the carnitas, I added chopped tomato, cilantro, pickled onions and habanero chili sauce to my arepas.

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Ingredients and Method

• 2 cups of arepa flour
• 2.5 cups of water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 Tablespoons oil

The recipe for the arepa came from Bon Appetit. It will seem way too wet when you first mix it but just let it rest for 15 minutes in the fridge and It will firm up and then you can work with it. Also, I made 16 arepas with this much mix because I like mine to be smaller. The arepas I made are around four bites each to finish.

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add all the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and let it rest for 15 minutes.
3. Heat a pan on medium-low heat
4. Divide the dough into 16 portions and roll them in your hand to make a ball. Then flatten that ball into a disk. (they should be 1/3 inch to 1/2 inch thick)
5. Cook the disk in the pan for 4 minutes with a lid on.
6. Remove the lid and flip the cakes and cook uncovered for 4 minutes more.
7. Let the arepas cool and then split them open and fill with your favorite fillings.

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Here is the arepa flour.

Here are the balls of dough. You will flatten them in your hands before cooking. They are pretty moist, so they are hard to flatten on a surface and transfer without ruining their shape.

Here are the arepas when they are finished cooking. (sorry for the blurry image! but you get the idea of how they will look)

Here I am getting ready to fill the arepas. You can fill yours with what ever you want. Or if you prefer, you do not have to split them in half. You can simple just top them with your favorite toppings.

Here they are before I put the top layer of corncake on.

And here is the finished dish. As is the case with so many foods, adding a squeeze of lime will really make all the flavors in this sandwich pop.

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Thanks for checking out my post today. I hope you have learned something new or I have inspired you to get into the kitchen. I'll see you in the comments section where we can talk about arepas and I will be happy to answer any questions you have.
Chef Steve