Cooking in Colombia

Since I was a little girl, I have loved being in the kitchen, particularly when it meant baking with my grandma (and getting to lick the bowl) or watching my grandpa throw together his famous Chicken Cacciatore. While my actual skills in the kitchen tend towards baking, in the last year I have tried my hand at cooking meals. With some help and suggestions from my roommates Meaghan and Erin, I would like to think that I have since perfected my homemade white pizza with garlic, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and goat cheese; my roasted garlic and vegetable pasta; egg and chorizo breakfast skillet and garlic shrimp pasta. However, when talking to my mom, the avid cooker and try-er of new recipes, about some meals I had made she said “You know Cas, garlic isn’t the only thing you can cook with.” Now as an avid garlic eater, I was offended, but decided to take on her challenge and try cooking meals that didn’t have garlic as the primary flavor, however tasty it may be. To help me on my way, she bought me a Williams-Sonoma “Essentials of Latin Cooking” cookbook to bring to Colombia with me. Having read through the book, I realized a couple things:

• There aren’t many Colombian recipes in here that will help me fit in any better, and I have been told that some of the ones in here are “fancy” Colombian meals.
• It should be re-named “Essentials of Latin Cooking If You Are Not Actually Living in a Latin Country and Have Every Ingredient Readily Available at Your Local Grocery Store and Every Piece of Kitchen Equipment Imaginable”. Not too catchy. There are certainly some modifications I will be making to some recipes due to the lack of tortilla press, grill, Monterey Jack Cheese, squash blossoms (wth?), red wine vinegar, or rosemary among other things. They don’t even have many types of peppers here (that I’ve seen so far). Luckily I have my handy dandy Magic Bullet to help me in my kitchen endeavors
• The majority of the recipes include garlic HAH!
• I’m not nearly as experienced in the kitchen as I thought. Yikes.

Never the less, I found an interesting recipe, but then decided to start small. My first “Latin” cooking experience here (outside of making juices) was making arepas, traditional bread made with corn flour, or Masa harina. There are several ways to cook arepas, but I chose one that didn’t require any deep frying. The recipe is simple: a 1 to 1 ration of ArepArina, or precooked corn flour, to water, with a teaspoon or so of sea salt. Kitchen foul number one: I bought sea salt crystals instead of already ground. Thank goodness for that Magic Bullet accompanied by an informative pamphlet to teach me how to grind spices.

After mixing the ingredients, letting the “masa” sit covered for 2 minutes I was instructed to knead the dough and roll it into an 8” (20cm) log and then cut it into 8 pieces and roll them into balls. Then flatten to 3” (8cm) in diameter. Metric units are something I’m still getting used to, so I’m grateful for the books use of inches etc.

Then I cooked the arepas in a pan with just a splash of olive oil for about 3-4 minutes on either side. I (attempted to) cut them open and we put eggs and chorizo inside for a lovely little breakfast. My arepas definitely need some improvement, I think I added a bit too much water because they were a bit moist inside, but delicious none the less. I had some of the left over arepas with a bit of cinnamon and sugar for a sweet treat later in the day. Check back later when I make arepas filled with chicken and chorizo with chimichurri!