Arepa De Huevo - Egg Stuffed Arepa

This dish is a typical Colombian breakfast; It's most popular in the Caribbean region of Colombia. The trick of this dish is to cook the egg inside the corn meal while frying it. It can be hard to enclose the egg without breaking the yolk, although it gets easier with practice. You can also add more stuff like cheese or meat, but ill prepare the classic, just egg.

Pre-cooked corn meal (yellow or white)

Eggs

Salt

Vegetable oil

Water

2 plastic bags (to mold the dough)

First, add the pre-cooked corn meal into a recipient where you can easily mix it. I used about one and a half mugs of corn meal to prepare four arepas and left enough dough for at least one more arepa. 

Add water to the bowl. I think I added about one mug of water (be careful as we want a playdoh consistency so we can mold it and it can hold the egg). Add salt while adding the water and taste it at the end and add more salt if needed.

Some people prepare a thick arepa first, slightly fry it and then cut it and crack an egg inside it, seal it and fry it again to cook the egg. While it might be easier, it is more likely to break the yolk. With the technique shown here, you can prepare the arepa with the egg intact; the issue is when moving it to the hot oil as it feels like a bag with liquid and you can break the arepa if you are not careful enough

First, cut two plastic bags so we can mold the dough. Put a little piece of dough on one of the bags so we can fold it and roll it or smash it between the plastic. I used a flat pan to smash it, making sure it is thick enough as it could break while we are moving it on the hot oil (which almost happened to me but it broke before putting it on the oil).

Unfold one of the sides of the bag from the dough and place the dough with the plastic on a little bowl or recipient to make a concave form to place the egg (check photos for reference).

Crack an egg on a bowl first to make sure it is good and the yolk is intact. Carefully transfer the egg from the bowl to our concave dough and add salt or seasoning.

Use the other bag to smash one more piece of dough, unfold one of the sides of the bag and place the flat dough on top of the bowl with the egg leaving the plastic on top.

Smash the two pieces of dough on the borders of the bowl and use it to cut the ends to make a perfect circular arepa. Take off the plastic on top and remove the excess dough from the borders, use the plastic of the bottom part to easily move it to the oil (remove before, of course).

Put enough oil on a pan to cover the arepas (i didn't have enough to cover them, but I put oil over them with a spoon while frying). Put the fire on high and wait till the oil is hot.

You can use a small piece of dough to check if the oil is hot enough. Carefully transfer the arepa from the plastic to the oil it feels like a bag with liquid and it can pop, which happened to me once, at least it broke before putting it on the oil (I put the dough and broken egg in a bowl and mix it with the leftover dough and more corn meal to use the dough later).

Fry it on high for about 3 minutes on each side (this would depend on how you want your egg, in my case they were fully cooked but if you want you can play with the fire and time to get different results).

To flip it, I prefer to take it out of the oil first as it can splash hot oil if you are not careful.

Take the arepa out from the oil, remove the excess and leave it to get a little cold so you don't burn your mouth.

Enjoy your breakfast (or snack) with coffee or hot chocolate.

Hope you like this dish you can try adding more stuff to your arepa and play with the heat to get for example a runny egg.

The trick is not to break the yolk but it is ok if it breaks. One of my yolks broke when cracking the egg and I added it to an arepa, no problem.