A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

A couple of days ago I met a Venezuelan couple in the street and they asked me if I knew where they could find ‘Harina-PAN’...

If you are not Venezuelan or Colombian you might be thinking... ‘What the hell harina-pan is?’

Harina stands for flour and PAN stand for ‘Producto Alimenticio Nacional’ or national foodstuff. Is corn based flour widely used in Venezuela to make ‘Arepas’ (toasted bread alike), ‘Hallacas’ (tamales alike) and bollos (again... tamales alike)... Colombians used it as well but the same purpose (ish).

This product can be found in FreshCO Fruit Markets, in NSW; or in Woolworth in the city. If you want to try one Arepa and you have found ‘Mazeca’, ‘Harina PAN’, ‘Mazarepa’ or similar corn based flour, here is the recipe of how to make Arepas.

Take one cup of water and put it in a bowl with your salt and mix it up. Then start powdering the flour into the bowl trying to get it really smooth.

One all the flour has absorbed all the water (around 5 minutes later the mixing process) you can check the consistency; must be soft yet firm enough to make dough balls in your hands (half tennis balls size). If the dough is too hard and crumbles, needs more water.

Flatten it with your hand, trying to get something round of 1 cm of thickness and then put it in a pan with a little bit a butter (... veeeery little, is not meant to be fried) and cook it using low flames... It might take around 10 minutes to be cooked.

You need every own and then to take it with your hands, hitting it gently. If it makes a drum alike sound (like hollow inside) is ready, otherwise need more time in the pan.

Once is ready, split it open by the edges and put whatever you want inside... A really common stuffing is cheese with some butter.

Enjoy it

=)