Arepas Recipe (How to Make Arepas)

hey what's up everybody today we are making Aras Aras are a simple delicious corn cake from South America uh particularly Venezuela and Colombia that is super delicious and very easy to make it's considered more of a humble comfort food enjoyed by all walks of life whether you're rich or poor uh doesn't matter everybody loves these and this is a dish that Patty particularly loves so they're always on the menu in the chili pepper Madness kitchen uh again they're very easy to make and only require three ingredients so uh let me show you how to make it all right my friends let's make Aras so there are three ingredients that you need to make aapas uh the first one is a cornmeal flour or AAP of flour uh the second one is water and the third ingredient is salt so it's very easy to make uh only three components uh the most important one though is this flour so there's a product called masara or AA flour it's very different from masa harina which you may see in the store that's used for making like um corn tortillas and such uh this is a special kind of flow really used for making a rapas and it's a basically a pre-cooked cornmeal so it's kind of like an instant brand so uh there are different brands that are out there and I've tried a few of them um like this one here this is a a yellow cornmeal masara from Goya it's opened and this one's Dona so uh you can try different ones see what you like best all right so let's make Aras now so here I'm going to start with this product here and I'm going to use two cups of arapa flour oh making a mess there it is shockingly shockingly making a mess all right I got two cups of the Rapa flour uh next component is salt just a little bit of salt really to taste couple pinches for add for adding flavor and third you need water so the amount of water that you need a lot of it comes down to sort of your experience um certain brands will tell you different amounts of water per flour ratios uh like one of them says 3 cups water to two cups flour another one says 2 cups plus 3 tblsp of water so again a lot of it's going to come down to your experience so here I have a little bit over two cups like two two and 1/2 cups so I'm going to go ahead and just add this in like so and we'll go ahead and mix it together and you can see how it starts to come together into a dough all right it's coming together here so next I'm just going to get my hands in there and start mixing mix it together and what you're really looking for is like the consistency of Play-Doh um if it's too grainy you want to add just a little bit more water cuz then it's too dry um but if it's too wet and loose it won't really form into into the good corn cake patties that we want to do so uh this is feeling pretty good here feeling good so once you get this put together I'm going to let it sit for about 3 to 5 minutes or so to kind of rest and then we will make some [Music] Aras all right my dough has been resting for a few minutes so now it's time to make AAS and uh this recipe the way I wrote it up calls for like 8 to 10 aapas to make um but it really depends on how thick you want your rapas to be because you can make them very thin and smaller or you make them nice and thick if you want to like stuff them um so for this particular one let's make a few thin ones first um so I'm going to uh take out about maybe a little bit the size of a large golf ball and you kind of roll it around and you're just going to flatten it into a disc uh roughly a/2 inch thick maybe a little thinner like so and it's about four to 5 in in diameter pretty roughly so this one's fairly thin you can see and you'll it's too dry if like some of the edges start cracking on the outside but this one feels good it's like again like the consistency of a like a Play-Doh so I'm going to go ahead and get my pan heated up to a good medium heat form these and then we'll cook them up all right my Pan's getting nice and hot so I'm going to add a little bit of oil or you can use butter to the pan don't need a lot all right then I'll add the ARA here and we're going to cook it for about four to five minutes per side when they're this thin really until they get nice and golden and start to Brown up and this will be a little maybe soft on the inside and again the thickness really depends on your preference uh in different parts of South America they prefer thicker or thinner it really comes down to how you want to use it and serve it but you're the one cooking it and eating it so you get to make it however you want I love that all right let's make another one right let me give this a flip oh yeah you can see it's starting to get little golden color looking good all right these are looking nice and golden here you can take a peek at that yum uh you can keep cooking in the pan if you want to until they're cooked to your preference uh but another way that some people like to cook it is uh to finish them in the oven uh you can you know bake them for 5 10 minutes is until they're done to your preference uh or you use like a toaster oven I'm going to use my toaster oven today so I'm going to put these two right here and I'll just bake them for a few minutes at 350 till they kind of brown up nicely extra Brown um but also let's make a couple more here so let's make some thicker ones I'm going to make uh these are more for stuffing so use about the same size about a little larger than a golf ball size little bit of extra moisture like so no sides are cracking then I'm pop it into the pan here do another [Music] one I'm going to flip this guy start to get a little golden on top I like it all right while these are cooking let's talk a little bit about variations so this is a real simple araba batter um recipe it's three ingredients like I said but you can change things up a little a little bit you can add butter if you want to add a little extra flavor to your uh rampos uh you can add spices different seasonings in there change it up a little bit uh you can also add cheese to your batter you can stuff the arapa later with cheese or just add some to your overall arapa flour mix and make nice cheesy to start with just delicious that way so many ways you can change this recipe up all right it's been about 5 minutes and these guys look like they're pretty good here look at that nice color oh crispiness yum going to set these onto the plate these are my thinner [Music] ones and then for my thicker ones here I'm going to go ahead and finish them in the toaster oven as well all right check it out got my Rus all done here I made eight arus um and again the recipe will vary you can make 8 to 10 or even like six bigger ones um but you can take a look at these and you can see all the differences in size um so again very versatile and for these like thinner ones uh I like to use those more for like stacking so I'll set it down you could uh actually you can snack on it you can just eat it with a little bit of butter it's delicious just like that uh or you can use it you can stack with like certain meats or cheeses and all kinds of topping so it's almost like a tostada sort of a dish um but for the thicker ones they're really great for stuffing and you can really stuff any of these but uh if you take a look like here's my puffier ones right here quite a bit thicker but all you got to do is kind of slice it open a bit like so nice little pocket and you can stuff these with all kinds of stuff like uh lots of different meats or cheeses or a combo of it um one of my favorites is u a spicy chisso with some cheese um but a super popular snack is really just shredded cheese like so look at that yum a cheesy cheesy stuffed Ora and you could you could set this back in the oven bake a little bit let get it melty or just enjoy it just as it is and uh any kind of a sauce you want a little dipper or whatever but uh boom look at that cheesy IA care for one and now for the best part of the recipe in my day The Taste yeah here it goes dude seriously these are amazing that's it my friends that's how you make Aras I really hope you love them as much as I do and definitely as much as Patty does so uh definitely a Patty's favorite here so uh um hey if you're looking for more recipes got a couple more popping up right here and here you got to check those out cuz I know you love them you know and uh but also I really would love to hear what you think of the recipe in the comments below um I'd love to hear how you're going to change up the recipe a little bit like adding stuff to it um but also what are your uh some of your favorite stuffings or toppings so uh let's let's talk about it I love to hear it so uh all right I hope to see you in the kitchen next time Mike from Chili Pepper Madness bye

Channel: Chili Pepper Madness

Views: 8,186

Keywords: arepas, arepas recipe, how to make arepas

Id: 4yqtvA8E6SI

Length: 9min 41sec (581 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2024