Bandeja paisa

Ingredients

• Red beans — soaked overnight400 g
• Pork belly with skin600 g
• Minced beef400 g
• Chorizo sausages300 g
• Rice350 g
• Green plantain — for the beans1
• Ripe plantain2
• Eggs4
• Arepas4
• Avocado2
• Onions2
• Tomatoes3
• Ground cumin1 tsp
• Vegetable oil150 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the beans with the chopped green plantain for an hour and a half, until soft and thick.

   95 min

2. 2

   Simmer the pork belly in salted water for forty minutes and dry it thoroughly.

   45 min

3. 3

   Fry the belly skin down in deep oil until the skin blisters and crisps.

   20 min

4. 4

   Make the hogao: fry the onion with the tomato and cumin, add the mince and cook it through.

   20 min

5. 5

   Fry the chorizo, cook the rice and fry slices of ripe plantain to a caramel colour.

   30 min

6. 6

   Cook the arepas on a dry pan and fry the eggs with runny yolks.

   20 min

7. 7

   Build the tray: beans, rice, mince, chicharrón, chorizo, egg, arepa, plantain and avocado side by side.

   10 min

About the dish

Each component is cooked separately and laid on a large platter without mixing. This is not one dish but an assembled plate of nine elements.

The beans are cooked with green plantain, which breaks down and thickens the liquid. That is the Antioquian method, and without it the beans stay thin.

The chicharrón — pork belly with the skin on — is cooked twice: first boiled, then fried until the skin blisters. Without the boiling the skin stays tough and never puffs.

Worth knowing

• — Dry the pork belly thoroughly before frying. Wet skin will not blister; it spits and stays leathery.
• — The portion is enormous by definition. Bandeja paisa was built for a day of field work, and half of one is a normal city serving.
• — Cook the components ahead and reheat them. Doing everything at once is impossible even on four burners.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

1480 kcal

Protein

78 g

Fat

82 g

Carbs

108 g

More from Colombia

• Arepas — Cakes of precooked corn flour, griddled and split open to be stuffed.
• Ajiaco bogotano — A chicken soup on three kinds of potato with guascas herb, capers and cream.
• Colombian sancocho — A chicken soup with cassava, plantain and corn, cooked over an open fire.