National Dishes of the World

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Hallaca
Photo: Wilfredor, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Hallaca

Christmas parcels of corn dough filled with a three-meat stew, olives and raisins, wrapped in plantain leaves and boiled.

Eaten in: Venezuela

Prep
3 h
Cooking
3 h
Resting
12 h
Total
18 h
Servings
20

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About the dish

The hallaca is the most important dish of a Venezuelan Christmas. A thin layer of corn dough, tinted yellow with annatto (onoto) oil, is spread on a plantain leaf and topped with a stew of beef, pork and chicken with peppers, onion and lightly sweet papelón, then garnished with olives, raisins, capers and strips of pepper. The leaf is folded into a rectangular parcel, tied with string and boiled. Making them takes a whole day, so families work together in large batches, then share them with neighbours and debate whose hallaca is best. On the Christmas Eve table they are joined by ham bread (pan de jamón) and chicken salad.

Main ingredients

  • corn flour
  • beef
  • pork
  • chicken
  • annatto oil
  • olives and raisins
  • plantain leaves

Venezuela: A Christmas dish – in December whole families make dozens of hallacas together.

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Hallaca

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/hallaca

Ingredients

20 servings

20 servings

Method

  1. The day before, make the stew: dice all the meats small and chop the vegetables. Fry the vegetables in a spoonful of annatto oil, add the meats, papelón, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper.

  2. Stew, covered, for about 1.5 hours until the meat is tender and the sauce thick; thicken with a spoonful of corn flour if needed. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

  3. Warm the oil with the annatto seeds until it turns orange, then strain.

  4. Wash and wipe the plantain leaves, pass them briefly over a flame or scald them to soften, and cut into rectangles of about 30 × 25 cm.

  5. Knead the corn flour with warm stock, annatto oil and salt into a soft, smooth dough.

  6. Brush a leaf with annatto oil, press a ball of dough out very thinly on it, add 2 tbsp of stew and garnish with olives, raisins, capers and a strip of pepper.

  7. Fold the edges of the leaf so the dough encloses the filling, wrap in a second leaf and tie crosswise with string.

  8. Boil the hallacas in batches in a large pot of salted water for about an hour. Lift out, drain and unwrap to serve.

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