plate 32: venezuela

Unsure as to where to head for plate 32, chief researcher Sal thought we should shake things up here at Destination Degustation and instructed me to blindly drive a pin into a printout of a world map to find the place of origin for this week's meal. The lucky country? Venezuela. No, not vuvuzela (thank God they're a distant memory), but Venezuela - one of the 12 countries that make up the amazing continent of South America. In case you're interested, it's bordered by Guyana, Colombia and the mighty Brazil.

While today is actually another South American country's - Ecuador - independence day (it's amazing what I've learned since switching to Mornings with Adam Spencer on radio 702), Venezuela was what made my day yesterday.

I was intrigued by the country's national dish - pabellon criollo - which loosely means "creole flag". The dish consists of shredded steak cooked with tomato and served with rice and black beans. The idea is that when plated, the dish resembles the Venezuelan flag.

Well, kind of. It looked like this...

The tomato with steak isn't nearly as red, the rice wasn't yellow and the beans aren't blue, but you get the gist. Anyway, we all know it's not about the colours, it's about the flavours - and they were yummo. It's easy to cook, too. Although it takes about two hours, so if you're not happy to ignore tummy grumbles until 9pm on a Monday night, then best cook it on the weekend or when you have more time.

To make it, the meat is cooked plainly in a little beef stock and water for about 1.5 hours until tender, then cooled before being shredded or thinly sliced. Then it's added to a mixture of fresh tomato and onion cooked in butter (butter makes everything better) and some of the liquid the meat is cooked in, which added a nice extra boost of flavour. The rice was cooked with some crushed garlic, which was a tasty alternative to the plain stuff, but it was the beans that stole the show for me. Super, super delicious and extremely simple to make.

Just pour a can of black beans (with the can juices) into a frying pan and cook with onion, garlic, a bit of chicken stock and ground cumin until the liquid reduces. And that's it. (Hmmm, well as you'll see in the pic below, I kind of forgot the onion and garlic, but I cooked them separately then stirred them in later.) It becomes nice and thick with a lovely rich taste. They'd be great just with plain rice or as a side for any dinner. And we all know beans are good for us...