The Venezuelan Bollito - A Boiled Cornflour Snack

For a typical Venezuelan breakfast, when you are short of time, try boiling your cornflour dough instead of making arepas. The resulting submarine-shaped "bollos" are ready in just 15 minutes. (photo copyright Russell Maddicks)

That white submarine at the back of the plate is a bollo (pronounced: bo-jyo), also known as a bollito (pronounced: bo-jyito).
They are made from the same dough used to make arepas, from pre-cooked corn flour.
Like many Venezuelans I use Harina Pan to make my arepas and bollos.
All you need to do is add water and knead the dough until you can shape it easily and it isn't too dry to form cracks.
Instead of forming the dough into flying saucer shapes and frying or baking your arepas, bollos are roughly shaped into submarines and boiled in water for about 15 minutes. You know they are ready when they float to the surface.
It's a really quick way to get your daily cornbread fix.
For breakfast I like to serve bollitos with perico (eggs scrambled with onions and tomatoes) and grated yellow cheese.
In some places in Venezuela, you find bollo pelon, which are bollos stuffed with minced beef or shredded chicken cooked in a sauce.
In Colombia, the bollo limpio is slightly different as the corn dough submarines are wrapped in a corn husk before being boiled.
In Venezuela this kind of bollo is called an hallaquita.
Just to confuse matters further, in Ecuador and some other Andean countries, there is a very similar corn dish called humita. These are typically made from fresh ground corn which is wrapped in corn husks and steamed, often with cheese mixed into the dough.
The ultimate bollo is the hallaca, a cornmeal-dough pocket stuffed with a host of tasty ingredients, wrapped in a plantain leaf, which is eaten at Christmas.

Related recipes:
How to Make Arepas
How to Make Perico
How to Make Hallacas 

#Venezuelan #food #bollos #hallaquitas #arepas

Venezuela Guide on Instagram - FITVen2013

INSTAGRAMEANDO ANDO YO...

In October 2013 I was invited to travel around Venezuela on a Press Trip organized by the Tourism Ministry (MinTur) in the run up to the FITVen2013 International Tourism Fair.

As I lost my laptop and camera en route to Venezuela I was forced to improvise. Armed only with an HTC One S mobile phone with an 8 megapixel camera, I decided to document my trip on Instagram.

Through trial and error, I learnt how to get the most out of a single shot and train my eye to find images that would work in a square. The filters I just responded to depending on my mood that day. The feedback on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter has been really encouraging.

I am pleased with the results.

The restrictions of Instagram forced me to be more creative and think carefully before taking each shot, which helped me to see Venezuela in a different way.

I came home with some great new images of Caracas, the islands of Margarita, Coche and Cubagua, rafting in Barinas, paragliding in Mérida and the folk festivals of the Pueblos del Sur, remote villages in the Andean mountains south of Merida.

To see more of my Instagram images follow me at @Venezuelaguide - http://instagram.com/p/gJ0qZdNZZG/



Street Theatre: In the area around Plaza el Venezolano and Plaza Bolivar in the centre of Caracas, actors recreate key scenes from Venezuela's history by bringing to life famous characters from the past who tell the story of their time. Here, the dictator Juan Vicente Gomez takes a stroll with Independence hero Francisco de Miranda.  



Whitewater Rafting: On the Rio Acequias in Barinas, adventure tour company Arassari Trek took us on a bumpy, adrenaline-pumping ride down a Grade 3 stretch of foaming rapids. It helps if everybody rows together.

For more details of rafting in Barinas contact Arassari Trek

Remote Andean Villages: Just outside San Jose de Acequias, one of the so-called Pueblos del Sur, we came across this tiny chapel dedicated to San Isidro Labrador, the patron sain of farmers. 

Vibrant Folk Festivals: The Locainas de Santa Rita are gentlemen who dress like ladies for a day during the festivities in honor of San Isidro, as Santa Rita in popular lore is the wife of the saint. As their name suggests, these ladies can get quite "loco" during the festivities held on 21-22 May, and after dancing with their sticks they try to liven up the festive mood by flirting with the men in the crowd.





Paragliding in Merida: Tierra Negra, close to the Andean city of Merida, is one of the best paragliding spots in Venezuela. Jose Albarran of Fanny Tours is one of the pioneers of paragliding in Venezuela and a great pilot for a tandem flight. Known to his friends as "Piojo" (Flea), due to his uncanny ability to scale sheer rock faces, Jose is one of the founders of the paragliding school in the nearby village of Las Gonzales, close to the landing site, where youngsters are being trained to become the paragliding champions of the future. Watch a video of me paragliding with Piojo here.

For more details of paragliding in Merida contact Jose at Fanny Tours Tierra Negra

Gustavo Dudamel gets a hot dog named after him!

You know you've made it in Los Angeles when you get a hot dog named after you. Just ask Venezuelan conducter Gustavo Dudamel, the hottest property in classical music at the moment at just 29 years old.

Dudamel, who comes from Barquisimeto, currently spends his time between Sweden, where he is the principal conductor of the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, and the United States, where he's the musical director of the Los Angeles Philarmonic.

The mop-top conductor has made such a big splash in LA that Pink's, the most famous hot-dog joint in town, has invited him onto its Super Specials menu.

The "L.A. Philarmonic Conductor Gustavo Dudamel Dog" is a mouthful even before you tuck into this "stretch hot dog" covered as it is with guacamole, American and Swiss cheese, fajitas mix, and jalapeno slices topped with tortilla chips.

Family-run hot-dog haven Pink's has been feeding Hollywood stars and A-listers since Paul and Betty Pink first opened a fast-food stand on the corner of La Brea and Melrose in 1939.

Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Snoop Dog, Jay Leno, the Hoff, there are few LA stars who have not popped in to this world famous landmark for a treat, but few are ever offered the chance to appear on the menu.

Dudamel joins a very select group of the hot-dog-honoured elite that includes Martha Stewart, Rosie O'Donnel and Ozzy Osbourne.

But why go for typical Tex-Mex ingredients, when the folks at Pink's could have made the maestro's dog more Venezuelan?

Where's the salsa rosada, for example, the unforgettable mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise that you only seem to find in Venezuela?

My last hot dog from a street stall in Caracas was a true work of art, a symphony of crushed potato chips and chopped up cabbage and onions slathered, with a conductor's flourish, in about six different sauces.

La Reina Pepiada - The Curvy Queen of Arepas

The "Reina Pepiada" is one of the most popular arepa dishes in Venezuela: a lip-smacking combination of shredded chicken, mayonnaise and petit pois stuffed into a grilled cornmeal arepa with slices of soft avocado.

Like the doner kebab in Britain, the Reina Pepiada - or Reina Pepeada in some places - is a firm favourite with drinkers and ravers who flock to late night areperas after the bars and clubs shut to soak up the alcohol with a "Reina" or two, preferably drizzled with spicy hot sauce.

But even after fifty years at the top of the arepa food chain few people know that this local delicacy is named after Venezuela's first international beauty queen Susana Dujim.

A stunning morena with jet black hair and a smile that could light up a city, Dujim was crowned Miss World in London in 1955, becoming the first South American to ever hold the title.

Venezuelans all over the country were immensely proud of her achievement but none more than the Alvarez brothers from Trujillo State who had recently opened an arepera on Gran Avenida between Plaza Venezuela and Sabana Grande in the capital Caracas.

That was back in the days when stuffed arepas were called "tostadas".

Heriberto Alvarez, now 83, said that in order to pay homage to Susana Dujim's amazing achievement the brothers decided to dress up their 12-year-old niece as a beauty queen and sat her on a kind of altar so she could be seen from the street.

"A man passed and asked us why we had this girl here," Heriberto told food writer Alberto Veloz.

Much to Heriberto's surprise, the man turned out to be Susana Dujim's father. He was so pleased with their tribute to his daughter that he brought her to see them the next Friday.

"I gave her a tostada and I told her: 'Look, this tostadita was specially prepared by my mother and its going to be called La Reina, just like you,'" said Heriberto.

"And because in those days curvaceous women like Susana were called 'pepiadas', we gave that name to the arepa," he adds.

So there you have it. The origin of the "Reina Pepiada" or the "Curvy Queen" - named after a true Venezuelan beauty, Susana Dujim, Miss World 1955.

A Glossary of Arepas

Recipe: How to Make Arepas

Buying Harina Pan in the UK

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Arepa de Maiz Pelao: Making Arepas the Hard Way

Recipe: Caraotas Negras - Venezuelan Black Beans

Recipe: Carne Mechada - Venezuelan Shredded Beef

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