Venezuelan Meal

I cannot believe I was stumped on what I should cook from Venezuela. This was one of the most delicious meals I have cooked. All three dishes were tasty, unique and very good.

For the main dish I decided to make Pasticho Venezolano or Venezuelan lasagna. This lasagna is not vegetarian. I made it vegetarian with the use of crumbled paneer. I retained the rest of the recipe which calls for béchamel sauce layered along with the lasagna noodles, fresh mozzarella cheese and the prepared paneer mixture. Simply delicious!

I paired this with salsa carioca, a simple salad made with tomatoes , onions, avocado and hard boiled eggs. The salad is dressed with a simple oil and vinegar dressing that has hot pepper sauce added to give it a nice kick. For dessert I made Besitos de coco, coconut cookies, that browned beautifully. They were crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. The entire meal was very satisfying both to cook and to eat.

I did not use any new ingredients in this meal. The addition of the béchamel sauce to the lasagna was very interesting as was the addition of hot pepper sauce to the salad dressing. My father who is visiting is not particularly fond of tomatoes. Both the main and side dish have tomatoes in them. But the tomatoes do not overpower the dish, merely flavor it and so he was able to enjoy the meal too.

As they say in Venezuela, Buen Provecho!

Here are the recipes for the dishes on the menu

• Pasticho Venezolano 
• Salsa Carioca 

And for dessert

• Besitos de Coco

Besitos de Coco (Venezuelan Coconut Cookies)

I love coconut in desserts. These baked coconut cookies are almost all coconut and brown sugar with a little egg yolk and flour for binding. They are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

I made these cookies as part of a Venezuelan meal. They are bite sized cookies and it is hard to stop with just one.

I cut this recipe to a quarter and made just eight.

You will need for 8 cookies
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 tbsp. all purpose flour
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tbsp. butter at room temperature
1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a mixing bowl combine all the ingredients and form a dough.

Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Form bite size balls of the coconut dough and place them on the baking sheet.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until they are brown.

Cool on a baking rack.

Enjoy!

Salsa Carioca (Venezuelan Salad)

Salsa Carioca is a simple Venezuelan salad. It is made with simple ingredients, tomatoes, onion, hard boiled egg and avocado. It is really the salad dressing that makes the salad. It has a good amount of hot pepper sauce giving it a real kick.

We like salad in my family and we like all the ingredients that went into this one. I used tomatoes and the Serrano pepper from my garden. The hot pepper dressing took the salad to a whole new level.

Recipe adapted from here
You will need
1/2 onion
1 tomato or 10-12 cherry tomatoes
1 medium avocado
1 Serrano pepper
1 hard boiled egg

For the dressing
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. white vinegar
1 tbsp. hot pepper sauce
salt and pepper

Slice the onion. Remove the seeds and dice the tomato. Remove the seeds and vein from the Serrano pepper and mince it. Peel and dice the hard boiled egg. Combine these ingredients in a mixing bowl and keep aside so the flavors blend together.

When you are ready to mix the salad remove the seed and peel from the avocado and dice it. In a separate bowl combine the ingredients for the dressing and whisk together. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well. Salsa carioca is ready.

Paneer Pasticho Venezolano (Venezuelan Lasagna)

When we think of lasagna we think Italian. But this version is from Venezuela. It is not a vegetarian recipe but I made it vegetarian with the use of crumbled paneer. I adapted this recipe. This Venezuelan lasagna has béchamel sauce in it which I found very interesting.

I used home grown cherry tomatoes for the filling and I think they made the dish more flavorful. It takes some time to prepare everything and put it together. To hurry things up I asked my daughter to put the last layer of cheese over the lasagna and as you can see she went crazy with it cutting up thick slices.

By the time the lasagna came out of the oven it was past lunch time. These pictures were clicked while everyone waited patiently at the table. Everything and everybody was at the table except the food. I barely had time to click pictures before it was all gone.

You will need
For the filling
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
12 cherry tomatoes or 2 large tomatoes, pureed
a handful cilantro
1 tsp. oregano
salt and pepper
7 oz. paneer

Refer here for the béchamel sauce

To assemble the lasagna
8-10 lasagna sheets or enough to form 4 layers in the pan you wish to use
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, sliced

Heat the butter and oil in a large pan. Add the onion and saute until tender. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add the pureed tomatoes, cilantro, oregano, salt and pepper.

Let the mixture cook for about 5 minutes then crumble paneer over it. Mix well and let it cook until it dries out a little. Keep aside.

Meanwhile prepare the béchamel sauce by following this recipe. Bring water to a boil and add the lasagna noodles. When the noodles are cooked you are ready to assemble the lasagna.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare your casserole dish by rubbing a little butter on the bottom. Add a layer of the noodles ensuring they cover the entire bottom of the dish. Spread a fourth of the béchamel sauce over the noodles.

Next spread a third of the paneer filling.

Finally add the slices mozzarella. Repeat 2 more times until the filling runs out. On the last layer of noodles place the béchamel sauce and mozzarella. Thinner slices of mozzarella will work just fine.

Bake open for 20-30 minutes. If you use fresh mozzarella the cheese will not brown. You can broil the dish for a couple minutes if you like a brown top.

This lasagna tastes best when hot. You can reheat leftovers.