First two chapters

You can read the first two chapters of my novel "The Chosen" by clicking here

Friday, August 23, 2013

How to make homemade Cachapas (in France)

First of all lets define what are Cachapas. According to Wikipedia:

"Cachapas are a traditional Venezuelan and Colombian dish made from corn. Like arepas, they are popular at roadside stands. They can be made like pancakes of fresh corn dough, or wrapped in dry corn leaves and boiled (cachapa de hoja). The most common varieties are made with fresh ground corn mixed into a thick batter and cooked on a budare, like pancakes; the cachapa is slightly thicker and lumpier because of the pieces from corn kernels." source.

I never had to worry about how to make chachapas when I was living in Venezuela, but since I came to Europe I started missing them so I decided to foind out how to make them, and this is what I discovered.

Ingredients for 10-12 chachapas:
- 3 big cans of sweet corn - ultra tender (300gr each) or equivalent



















- 8 tablespoons of corn flour (I only use Harina P.A.N.) This can be tricky to find, try latinamerican markets if you have close by, I find them in an asian market.



















- 2 tablespoons of refined sugar
- 1 tea spoon of salt

Preparation:
mix all the ingredients into a bowl and blend until you get a sticky dough, it will be lumpy, which  is normal.

If the though is too dry it will be difficult to flatten, if it is too humid it will stick to the pan, here's my advice, take a table spoon of dough and then turn the spoon side ways, the dough should take about 3 seconds to fall, if it falls immediately add more corn flour, if it takes too long to fall, you can add some water or milk to soften it.


Cooking:
Take a tablespoon full of the dough and put it on a frying pan that you have slightly oiled before.



And then with the help of a second spoon expand and flatten the dough.


Cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side at medium fire.
I like to add ham, fresh cheese (like mozzarella) and natural yougurt that I add half a teaspoon of salt.


Let me know if it worked for you.

Enjoy!