Bandeja Paisa

Antioquia's loaded tray: cargamanto beans with pork belly, rice, chicharrón, chorizo, a fried egg, arepa, avocado and fried plantain

Origin: Medellín & Antioquia

From the journey of Beans.

Bandeja paisa is a tray rather than a dish, and the beans are its foundation. Frijoles cargamanto, the speckled red-and-cream bean of Antioquia, are cooked for hours with pork belly and green plantain until the liquor is thick, and everything else on the tray, and there is a great deal else, is arranged round them. The full assembly runs to nine or ten components: the beans, white rice, chicharrón, minced beef, chorizo, morcilla, a fried egg, an arepa, avocado, and a slice of fried ripe plantain, with hogao, the Colombian tomato and spring onion sofrito, spooned over. It is served on an oval platter because a plate will not take it. The dish is descended from the fiambre or sancocho that arrieros, the muleteers who moved goods over the Antioquian mountains through the nineteenth century, carried wrapped in leaves: beans, rice, pork, and arepa, high in energy and stable for days. The consolidation into a single named plate served on a tray is a twentieth-century restaurant development, and the name bandeja paisa appears to have come into common use only from about the 1960s and 1970s. Attempts to declare it Colombia's national dish have been made and have failed, partly on the grounds that it is regional rather than national and partly because it is very large. The green plantain cooked into the beans is a detail worth keeping. It goes in early, breaks down entirely, and thickens the pot in the way that nothing else does; a cargamanto pot without it is looser and less sweet.

Ingredients

Beans

500 g dried cargamanto or borlotti beans, soaked overnight
300 g pork belly, in one piece
1 green plantain, peeled and grated
1 carrot, grated
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp salt, or to taste

Chicharrón

600 g pork belly with the skin on, in thick strips
1 tbsp salt

To serve

400 g long-grain rice
400 g minced beef
6 chorizo sausages
6 eggs
2 ripe plantains, sliced on the diagonal
2 avocados, sliced
6 arepas
200 ml hogao

Method

Drain the soaked beans and put them in a large pot with 2 litres of fresh water, the whole piece of pork belly, the grated green plantain, carrot, onion, and garlic.
Grate the green plantain rather than slicing it. It dissolves completely over three hours and is the traditional thickener for a cargamanto pot.
Bring to the boil, skim, then simmer, partly covered, for two and a half to three hours until the beans are soft and the liquor has thickened.
Add the cumin and salt only in the last twenty minutes; salted early, the skins stay tough.
Lift out the pork belly, chop it, and return it to the pot.
For the chicharrón, score the skin of the belly strips, rub them all over with the tablespoon of salt, and leave for twenty minutes.
Put the strips in a cold dry heavy pan, set it over a low heat, and let the fat render out slowly for thirty to forty minutes, turning them now and then.
Start the chicharrón in a cold pan. Fat rendered slowly gives crisp skin and tender meat; a hot pan seizes the outside and leaves it leathery.
Raise the heat for the last five minutes so the skin blisters and crackles, then drain on paper.
Cook the rice; fry the minced beef with a little hogao; grill the chorizo; fry the ripe plantain slices in a little oil until caramelised at the edges; and fry the eggs last so the yolks are soft.
Warm the arepas on a dry griddle.
Build each tray with a bowl of beans at the centre and everything else arranged round it: rice, beef, chorizo, chicharrón, the egg on top, the arepa, avocado, and plantain, with hogao spooned over.

Notes

Cargamanto beans are worth seeking out from a Colombian grocer; borlotti are the closest widely available substitute. Grate the green plantain into the pot at the start. Salt the beans at the end. Render the chicharrón from a cold pan and finish it hot. Everything else is assembly, and the tray is traditionally so full that the components touch. It is a lunch rather than a dinner in Antioquia, and nobody eats anything afterwards.

The Gastrographer

Name: Bandeja Paisa
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 3 h
Total time: 3 h 40 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Medellín & Antioquia
Ingredients: 500 g dried cargamanto or borlotti beans, soaked overnight; 300 g pork belly, in one piece; 1 green plantain, peeled and grated; 1 carrot, grated; 1 onion, chopped; 4 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 tsp ground cumin; 2 tsp salt, or to taste; 600 g pork belly with the skin on, in thick strips; 1 tbsp salt; 400 g long-grain rice; 400 g minced beef; 6 chorizo sausages; 6 eggs; 2 ripe plantains, sliced on the diagonal; 2 avocados, sliced; 6 arepas; 200 ml hogao

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control