Pabellón criollo

Ingredients

• Beef flank800 g
• Black beans — soaked overnight350 g
• Long-grain rice350 g
• Plantain — ripe, black-skinned2
• Onion2
• Bell pepper2
• Garlic5 clove
• Tomatoes400 g
• Ground cumin1 tsp
• Vegetable oil80 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 half the onion and some garlic until soft, an hour to ninety minutes. Salt at the end.

   90 min

2. 2

   Simmer the beef whole in salted water for an hour and twenty minutes. Lift it out and cool it enough to handle.

   85 min

3. 3

   Pull the meat into threads along the grain. Across the grain it shreds into crumbs.

   12 min

4. 4

   Fry the remaining onion, pepper and garlic, add the tomatoes and cumin, then the meat, and stew twenty minutes with a ladle of the broth.

   25 min

5. 5

   Cook the rice loose, without butter or spice; here it is the neutral part.

   20 min

6. 6

   Slice the plantain on the diagonal and fry over medium heat until caramel on both sides.

   10 min

7. 7

   Build the plate in sectors: rice, beans, meat and plantain side by side, unmixed.

   5 min

About the dish

Each part is cooked separately and they are not mixed on the plate. The three colours — black, white and brown — read as a flag, which is where the name "banner" comes from.

The beef is boiled tender first, pulled into threads by hand, and only then stewed in the sauce. The other order gives chunks rather than the thread the dish exists for.

The fried plantain is not optional and has to be sweet: use one overripe, with black skin. Green plantain makes tostones, but not this.

Worth knowing

• — Keep the beef broth: the meat is stewed in it, and it also rescues the beans if they come out dry.
• — Salt the beans only once they are soft. Salt at the start leaves the skins tough.
• — The version with a fried egg on top is called a caballo, "on horseback". It is the ordinary way to make the plate go further.

Nutrition

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

Calories

780 kcal

Protein

45 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

96 g

More from Venezuela

• Cachapas — Thick pancakes of ground fresh corn, folded around a soft white cheese.