Baked Arepas with Reina Pepiada filling
Arepas are a really tasty food that comes from Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia, but also with a great presence in the Canaries (especially in Tenerife) and in places in USA like Miami.
It consists in a dough made of Corn Flour (known as “Harina Pan”). This can be eaten by itself (called “Arepa Widow“) or filled with practically anything.
Baked Arepas with Reina Pepiada filling
In this recipe, we are going to learn how to do the Arepa and one of the most known fillings, the “Reina Pepiada”, which consists in an amazing mix of pulled chicken with mayo and avocado.It is really a masterpiece and you need to try it!What do you think? Should we start?
Ingredients
Dough
- 200 g of corn flour (Harina Pan)
- 210 mL of warm water
- 1 tbsp of salt
Reina Pepiada filling
- 2 chicken breast (1 per person)
- 1 avocado
- 2 tbsp of mayo
- 1 tbsp of granulated garlic
- ½ tbsp of salt
- 1 tsp of oil
Instructions
Arepa
- Pre-heat oven at 180 °C / 350 °F. Add the flour in a bowl.
- Incorporate the water in small batches, and mix it with your hands until the dough becomes compact.
- You will see that the dough will become more and more compact the more water you add.
- Once you have a compact and non-sticky dough, it will be ready for doing the arepas.
- Divide the dough in small balls. If you follow the same ingredients than this recipe, you’ll be able to do 4 medium sized arepas, or 2 big ones.
- With your hands, press the dough until it has a circular shape. Ideally, it should be 1cm thin.Tip: try to have your hands wet all the time, that way the dough will not break or scratch.
- Once the Arepas are ready, put then in an oven tray with some oil in both, the recipe and on the arepa.Introduce the tray in the pre-heated oven at 180 °C / 350 °F.
- You need to bake them for a total time of 40 minutes. 20 minutes on each side.While they are being baked, you can start preparing the filling.
Reina Pepiada Filling
- Slice the chicken breast.The size is not important as we are going to pulled it layer.
- Cook the chicken for 10 minutes and let it cold down for 5 minutes.
- Once the chicken is not burning, start pulling it with your hands or with a fork. Do not worry about it getting cold, as it is going to be heated again when preparing the sauce.In the meantime, get out the meat of the avocado and slice it.
- Once we are reaching the last 10 minutes of baking for the Arepas, place the pulled chicken in a pan at medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil.
- Add a tablespoon of granulated garlic and half a tablespoon of salt.
- Add two tablespoon of mayo.
- Mix until you get a uniform mix. You may want to try it and correct the salt and garlic to your taste.If the mixture is a little dry, you can incorporate more mayo.
- Finally, add the sliced avocado and mash it with a fork so it can be mix together with the chicken and mayo.
- At this point, you should be able to remove the arepas from the oven and let them chill for a few minutes so you can handle them.Finally, open the arepa with a knife and fill it with the mixture of chicken, mayo and avocado.And that’s it! Enjoy your amazing arepa!
Notes
We’ve baked the arepas, but you can also fry or heat them in a pan.
You may also want to add cheese (yellow cheese) to your “Reina Pepiada”. If you do that, you’ll be eating a “Sifrina” instead.
Nice! 👍
I’m not much of a cook myself but this is actually my favourite thing to make at the moment ha.
I am more of a fan of frying the arepas each side first, then put in the oven to raise a bit.
Any suggestions of where to buy the flour from in the UK would also be appreciated, I’ve bought the p.a.n brand from Amazon but it’s expensive unless you buy absolute bulk loads of the stuff.
Gracia’s!
Hi Joe! Thanks a lot for your comment 🙂 Normally we would go to an international store to get PAN flour. In the UK the ones full of Asian products are quite common and sometimes they would also carry some Latin American stuff… It is true that via Amazon it is really expensive, though!!