As Christmas approaches, it’s time to prepare to go shopping and cook delicious dishes and desserts. In Venezuela, each family member makes their purchases to guarantee that all the ingredients of the hallaca are ready for the day in which this old recipe will be elaborated. Plantain leaves, yellow cornmeal, oil, several meats between chicken, beef and / or pork, red wine, onoto or better known as “achiote”, red pepper, sweet pepper, raisins, capers, green olives and others elements are part of La hallaca.
In many countries there are similar foods where plantain or corn leaves are used and Tamal is usually the most famous recipe. The Tamal can be made with rice or corn, both ground, while the hallaca, the original, can only be prepared with corn dough and its color should always be yellow.
There are different types of tamales: Mexicans, Panamanians, Salvadorans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, etc .; but when you hear the word “hallaca” you only think of a plate: a dough full of many things and wrapped with green leaves as a gift, one that smells very good and tastes very good. And you think of Venezuela, with its music “gaitas”, ham bread, sweet of green papaya, and Ponche Crema (a drink made with eggs and rum).
Preparing Hallaca is an opportunity to get together with your loved ones, friends or family, on vacation. There is always a person who makes the Hallaca as an expert and the other people around the table learn how to put and spread the dough on the sheet; how to refill with the stew, how to bend without breaking the corn dough and, finally, how to close and tie the hallaca. This is a short video with the necessary steps to elaborate the Hallaca.
Orthographically this dish can be spelled: hallaca or hayaca, both forms are correct. Some people say that it means “from here or there” (de aquí -here- o de allá -there). Some hallacas can be filled of vegetables or fish, depending from the Venezuelan region where they were made. In the Andean region people put the chickpea in the hallaca as a decoration, in the center of Venezuela they put the onion, the potatoes and the carrots, in the east they put the eggs; It is a matter of taste. There is a song that says like that: “Digan lo que digan, no discuto más. La mejor hallaca, la hace mi mamá”. (Whatever they say, I discuss no more. The best hallaca does it my mom). Although I know how to cook Hallacas, my mother does the best.
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