Bandeja Paisa

Storing and Planning Ahead

The beans keep 4 days and freeze 3 months. Cook the fried components fresh.

Bandeja Paisa: The Method

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1. Drain the beans and simmer them with the whole carrot and the pork belly in fresh water for 90 minutes, until tender. Keep them saucy, topping up with hot water.

   Mark done Start 90 min timer

2. While the beans simmer, make the hogao: cook the spring onions in the oil for 5 minutes, add the garlic and cumin for 1 minute, then the tomatoes, and cook 15 minutes to a thick sauce.

   Mark done Start 5 min timer

3. Stir half the hogao and the grated plantain into the beans and cook 20 minutes more, then season.

   Mark done

4. While the beans finish, start the chicharrón: put the scored pork belly in a dry heavy pan with 100 ml water, cover, and cook 30 minutes. Uncover and fry in its own fat for 15 minutes, turning, until puffed and crisp.

   Mark done Start 15 min timer

5. Fry the chorizo until browned and cooked through.

   Mark done

6. Cook the beef mince with the rest of the hogao for 10 minutes until browned and saucy.

   Mark done Start 10 min timer

7. Fry the plantain slices in oil for 2 minutes a side until golden and caramelised.

   Mark done Start 2 min timer

8. Warm the arepas on a griddle.

   Mark done

9. Fry the eggs last, in hot oil, so the whites are crisp at the edges and the yolks runny.

   Mark done

10. Build each plate: a mound of rice, a bowl or pool of beans, the chicharrón, chorizo, mince, plantain, egg on top, with an arepa, avocado and lime at the side.

    Mark done

Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Choosing rice.

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A Few Pointers

• Hogao goes into the beans late, not at the start.
• Start the chicharrón with water in the pan — it renders before it fries.
• Eggs last. Everything else can be kept warm.

Behind the Recipe

The beans are the anchor and they need a hogao — a slow-cooked tomato and spring onion sofrito — stirred in near the end rather than at the start, so their sweetness stays bright against the long-cooked beans. Everything else is timed backwards from the egg, which has to be the last thing cooked.

Serving Ideas

Aguapanela or a cold beer · Aji picante · Lime wedges

Swaps and Variations

• Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
• Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
• An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Quick Answers

Bandeja Paisa Nutrition Facts

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

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