Arepas with Sottocenere and Sweet Peppers

I recently had the opportunity to eat my first arepa, having seen them in various food media sources in the past. This particular one was delicious but was obviously made with yellow corn meal. Apparently this dish comes from Venezuela, but has made it into other culture in various forms. In research how I'd go about making my own arepa, I found there was some preferred nuance to picking the right dried corn base. First, corn meal is generally shunned, as is corn flour. Next, white corn is definitely preferred to yellow. So this leaves two options: white masa harina or actual arepa flour. The masa harina is maize that has undergone a process of nixtamalization, wherein the corn is "cooked" in lime water (lime in the mineral sense, not the fruit). This is the process in detail...

From Wikipedia

From all the sources consulted, the only legit arepa flour I was able to identify was Harina Pan, a commercial brand of arepa flour. After hitting 3 Latin American grocers and consulting this store finder, I was unable to locate Harina Pan, so I went with the white masa harina. Apparently masarepa is another name for what this cooked form of corn flour is called.

Working without a recipe of any manner, I played with the flour, incorporating more water than if I were making corn tortillas, and ended up with about a 5 to 4 ratio of flour to water. The texture was tacky like thick oatmeal. Now to make this taste good, I found inspiration in a dish I had at Tamayo restaurant in Denver, the Sopa de Elote - a soup of roasted corn with a huitlacoche dumpling. This was a flavor revelation to me as this was my first exposure to huitlacoche (corn fungus), and the pairing of a mushroom with corn. The earthiness of the huitlacoche and the sweetness of the corn made sweet + earthy just work. For this preparation I settle upon incorporating sottocenere, an Italian cheese flavored with chunks of black truffle. The sweet peppers (red and orange bell peppers) came from the thought of the flavor of succotash. The actual preparation used 1 cup white masa harina, 200 ml of water, small dice of 1 red and 1 orange pepper, 1/4 pound of sottocenere diced, and a couple healthy pinches of maldon sea salt. After combining the ingredients, I greased a small sheetpan with duck fat, and separately greased the inside of 4 english muffin rings. Using a spatula, I filled each ring a little more than half full and pressed the mixture roughly into place.

From gastronomic guesswork

Then over a gas burner on medium heat, I cooked the bottoms of the arepas for about 5 minutes. Then these were placed into the oven at 400F for 15 minutes, until the cheese was bubbling. I finished these under the broiler for 3 minutes to crisp them slightly. The arepas were removed from the oven and cooled for a couple minutes. To plate, I used a paring knife to help free the edges from the muffin rings.

From gastronomic guesswork

The results were delicious, a delicate paring of truffle and corn, sweet and earthy chaulks up another win with this foodie. While this might be missing the particular flavor that the masarepa imparts, these little corn cakes are a cool little vehicle for flavor, and I think make a nice starter or starch as part of a main course. I'll continue the search for masarepa today in the South Federal Blvd corridor, but if you know where to get it, either leave your comment or tweet me @kindageeky.