Hola Amigos 💕💕🐝🐝 // Hi Friends 💕💕🐝🐝
How are you friends 🐝? I hope you are very but very well and have had a very good Sunday 😊.... On this side of the planet we are very but very thank God, today I woke up super early because I prepare the first Hallacas of December, I'm a little late because I usually always prepare the first Hallacas the first week of December to fill me with Christmas energy, but the beginning of this month was a little complicated with the weather and I had not been able to. Preparing the Hallacas is a big job and that is why almost all Venezuelan families get together to make the Hallacas because it makes the work lighter, besides the fact that you are sharing as a family where each member helps in the preparation. I made them alone, but they were not many I got 20 Hallacas but I spent all day preparing them and for this moment where I am writing this post, I am full full tired, my hands and back hurt, but I am satisfied with the result and tomorrow I am sure that the people that I will give them a hallaca will be very happy.
Hallacas is a traditional Christmas dish of our country, this dish comes from our slaves, in those times of slavery here in Venezuela when Christmas time came the rich and wealthy held their dinners and parties and gave the leftovers to the slaves and they looking for a way to also celebrate Christmas created this traditional dish, which is our Christmas dish and I think all Venezuelans love hallacas. A Venezuelan hallaca is like an empanada but in a rectangular shape, filled with stew, which is usually pork, chicken or beef, has raisins, olives, capers as main ingredients, and is wrapped in banana leaves where it will be cooked in boiling water.
Para la preparación de estás Hallacas utilicé:
For the preparation of these Hallacas I used:
- 1 kg of pork meat.
- 200 grams of sweet chili bell pepper.
- 150 grams of chives.
- 2 large onions.
- 3 tablespoons of finely chopped garlic.
- 2 bell peppers.
- Salt and pepper.
- Oregano.
- Curry.
- Cumin.
- Raisins.
- Olives.
- Capers.
- Yellow corn flour dough.
The first thing I did, was to prepare everything to make the stew for the hallacas, I made them only with pork or pork because that's the way I like them, many people mix beef with pork and I really don't like them that way hehehehe. Have all the seasonings on hand and the meat too.
Then I began to wash the meat and then to chop the meat into squares, as the meat did not have much fat, I bought some bacon to add to the stew, the bacon I always chop it a little smaller than the meat. When I already have it chopped I add it to the pot where I am going to stew it.
Now we start chopping the seasonings, they should be chopped very small so you do not feel many, if you have a kitchen helper or a picatodo would be ideal to make this step easier, my poor little hands are super tired of so much chopping hehehehehehehehehehe.
First I chopped the sweet peppers, removed the seeds and then chopped them finely. I added them along with the meat and mixed.
Then the scallions or long onions, wash them very well and then chop them finely. And mix.
Luego las cebollas. Y mezcle.
Then the onions. And mix.
Luego el pimentón. Y mezcle.
Then the paprika. And mix.
Luego los ajos. Y mezcle.
Then the garlic. And mix.
After we have all the seasonings mixed with the meat, we season it with onoto, curry and oregano, mix well and put the lid on to cook over low heat so that it starts to cook.
We are going to go cooking, over low heat and stirring occasionally so it does not stick.
Then we add a spoonful of olives, a spoonful of capers and raisins and let it cook over low heat, if we see that it lacks some liquid we can add a little water, rectify the flavors by adding a little salt. This way we leave to cook until we have our stew ready, that we taste it and it has a delicious flavor is time to turn it off and we would have it ready to start preparing the Hallacas.
This post is already getting very long, and I'm trying to be quite explicit so you can understand me. I'm going to leave this post until here and tomorrow I'll tell you how to make the hallacas without fail. I'm really exhausted and satisfied, today I had a super yummy Hallacas dinner 😋 see you tomorrow without fail.
