Venezuelan · Breakfast
Cachapa con Queso de Mano
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a silken, spoon-slow texture.
Ingredients
- 700 g sweetcorn kernels, from about 6 ears
- 60 g masarepa, precooked white corn flour
- 1 egg
- 60 ml whole milk
- 25 g sugar, or 30 g grated papelón
- 8 g fine salt
- 40 g butter, for the pan
- 300 g queso de mano or another soft fresh curd cheese, thickly sliced
- butter, to finish
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
Resting dough: the pause that does the work
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Blitz the kernels with the egg, milk, sugar and salt in short bursts and stop while the mixture is still coarse and speckled; a smooth purée loses the shreds of skin that keep the pancake from turning gluey.
- Stir in the masarepa and rest the batter 10 minutes, until a spoonful mounds briefly before settling; if it still runs like cream, add masarepa 10 g at a time. 10 min
- Butter a heavy pan over medium low heat and ladle in 150 ml, spreading it to a round about 15 cm across and 8 mm thick.
- Wait until the surface has gone from glossy to matte and the rim lifts without tearing, about 5 minutes, then flip once and give it 3 minutes more. 5 min
- Off the heat, lay the cheese over one half, fold, and press for a moment so the residual warmth softens it rather than melting it out; finish with a knob of butter on top.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes
- It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
- It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
- The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
- It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
- Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.
Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Mimosa (weekends only)
- Also Right
- Cava, straight
- From the Taps
- -
- Zero-Proof
- Fresh orange juice & café au lait
Morning food wants brightness and bubbles, or honest coffee: nothing that argues before noon.
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