Hi I'm Kelis and I'm in the Food Tube kitchen, today I'm gonna make smokey bacon Arepas.
Arepas are a really traditional Columbian dish they cook them on every corner and there's
a million different ways to do it. I kinda put my own twist on it and I've had some discussions
with some other Columbians they do not think that bacon should be on them but I do so I
put bacon in mine just cos I put bacon in everything. This is basically just really fine pre cooked
white cornmeal I get it at my market I've got about 500 grams already measured out so
I'm just gonna put it in my bowl here then I have a kettle of some already boiled water,
2 cups, cooking is temperamental and it depends on your atmosphere, if you're in a really
humid place you might need less water if you're in a super dry place like California where
I am from you might need more water. You wanna make like a dough so if you see that it's
still really dry like this you know you need some more water I was just recently in Columbia
and it was amazing because like you see all these women making them on the corner with
open flames and one of the things that I thought was cool was that it's like such a great foundation
for so many different things like you can top it with anything you could put bacon in
it you could put onions in it you could put jalapenos or it's a foundation for like this
plethora of amazing delicious things. You want your dough consistency to be you want
it to be pliable like it needs to be able to mould, you don't want it to be so wet to
the point where you can't get it to become something but you don't want it to be so dry
to the point where you can still see the dry grains you know? So I fried up some american
bacon if you're in the UK or in Europe then this would be streaky smoked bacon and just
chop it up and added it to my arepa dough. We love eating these for breakfast in my house
because they're quick and they're easy but you really could have them any time in Columbia
they eat them all day. One is like one serving I think that's more than enough it's like having
your little personal pizza. I've had mine in the fridge for up to like a week they don't
usually last a week only because people eat them but in theory if you were to keep them
in your fridge for a week I think they'd be good. There's a lot of different ways you
can do these, you can do them in a toaster oven to start them off I like doing them in
a pan with some butter and then finishing them off on some open flame just because they'll
get a really good nice charred flavour colour. It gets crispy crusty on the outside on both
sides and then just a little layer on the inside is like soft and mushy and that's what
makes the whole perfect combo. Alright so I'm gonna start my smoked bacon ones in there,
I'm gonna grate my cheese this is just queso blanco I've done it with gouda I've done it
with gruyere, people think that Cotija is the same as queso blanco it's very similar and
if you can't find queso blanco then I would say go with Cotija but Cotija's a lot saltier,
this is extremely traditional light fluffy wonderful and then this is literally just
finishing them off perfect for my arepas inside when I don't feel like starting a barbecue,
almost done, I'm actually ready to put them on our fire. They're such a treat, so good,
super versatile you can do all vegetarian or chorizo or whatever but I mean the core
of them is that yeah they're gluten free by nature because it's corn I suppose if you really
had to you could use oil instead of butter, again it's a personal choice you don't need
to keep them on there too long. That is exactly what you want, you want the burning bit it's
the best part do you hear that? Yep so these also you wanna you don't wanna like make them
and then have them sitting you wanna serve them right away because what happens is if
they're sitting on whatever plate or board that you have them on for too long they get
like soggy again and then all that wonderful charring and crisping is kind of a waste of
time. Okay now please look at this, look how fantastic this cheese is like clouds its miraculous,
Columbia they'll heap like literally you'll be like there's no way that I can eat all of
that but it's like so light and fluffy that just like when you take a bite it just goes
away it's perfect. We've got some already fried down chorizo like I said before there's
really no wrong answer here guys I've got some ahi here like a salsa and it's got a
really nice fresh flavour because of all of the cilantro I also have the recipe in my
book but really just so you know it's cilantro, onion, garlic, habaneros, tomato, a little
bit of lime, vinegar, water done. So now you get to try it it's my favourite part okay
let's see.... score! crunchy, soft, salty, chorizo makes it get that really good flavour
to go with bacon the ahi has got like a fresh, it's like a break to everything I want in
my mouth right now. If you like this recipe there are tons more click the link below for
my book there's recipes from all over the world like from Asia and Latin America and
classic American dishes I hope you enjoy them I'm super excited about it