Most People Are Cooking Shrimp Wrong (Dominican Camarones a la Crema)

Your arepa came out black on the bottom and loose as wet sand in the middle, and you ended up spooning the good part out of the center. Here is the move: the heat has to come from the TOP as well as underneath. In the campo they put the lid on the caldero and laid hot coals on top of it, so the cake baked from both directions at once. At home, the oven does the same job. And before anything else: if you typed "arepa" and pictured a white corn patty split open and stuffed with cheese, that is the Venezuelan and Colombian arepa, and it is wonderful, and it is not this one. Ours is sweet — cornmeal, coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon — a dense custardy corn cake you eat at four in the afternoon with coffee. I'm Rosa. I cooked for twenty-four years in a Dominican kitchen in Washington Heights. The method, so you can keep it (feeds 8 to 10, in a 10-inch caldero or heavy ovenproof pot): • 2 cups medium-grind yellow cornmeal (harina de maíz — NOT fine corn flour, NOT masarepa) • 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk + 2 cups evaporated or whole milk • 1 cup sugar · 1 tsp salt · 1 cinnamon stick + 1 tsp ground cinnamon · 1 tsp vanilla • ½ cup raisins if your house uses them · 4 tbsp butter, added at the END • **Whisk the cornmeal into the COLD liquids before any heat.** Lumps are permanent once it is hot. • Cook over medium, stirring almost constantly, 12 to 15 minutes, until the spoon leaves a track across the bottom that holds for a second. Then the vanilla, raisins and butter. • **THEN THE HEAT ON TOP:** lid on with the flame as low as it goes and a diffuser, 35–45 min · OR the whole pot uncovered into a 350°F oven, 35–45 min · OR the traditional way, lid on with hot coals laid on top. • Done when the top is dark and set and has pulled slightly from the sides. • **REST IT 30 MINUTES BEFORE CUTTING.** It firms as it cools. Cutting it hot is why people think theirs failed. If you use coals on the lid: the handle gets dangerously hot and ash falls in if you lift it carelessly. Tilt it away from the pot and use a towel, never a bare hand. Chapters: 0:00 The arepa that came out wrong 0:50 First, the word: this is not that arepa 1:31 The move: heat on top too 2:26 The stove version, and the oven version 3:02 Who I am 3:42 The three things around it 3:47 One: stir it on the stove first 4:27 Two: coconut milk, not water 5:02 Three: sugar early, butter late 5:38 The whole thing in order 6:48 The heat on top, three roads 7:18 What the top should look like 8:13 How it is eaten 8:48 Where it goes wrong 10:00 A word about equipment 10:43 What it costs 11:09 Your errand this week Raisins or no raisins? And did your family make it on the stove, in the oven, or with coals on the lid? Tell me where your family is from in the DR. I read every comment. Next video: pan de agua, and why the crust shatters at the colmado and never at home.