Basic Grilled or Griddled Arepas
Traditionally, arepas are made by soaking and pounding dried corn in a pilón—a large mortar and pestle. The moist pounded dough would then be shaped into cakes and cooked. These days, most folks buy pre-cooked, dehydrated masarepa—arepa flour—that only needs to be mixed with water and salt to form a dough. Masarepa is pretty widely available in the United States (check the latin aisle of your supermarket: Goya, PAN, and Areparina are popular brands). It comes in both yellow and white varieties. I usually use the white masarepa.

Making arepa dough takes a bit of practice, but if you’ve ever made tortillas, you’re off to a good start. The key is to use only as much moisture as is necessary to get a dough that doesn’t crack when you shape it. Too much water and you’ll end up with dense, gummy arepas. The simplest arepas use only water and salt, but I find a bit of oil helps to keep them softer and moisture as they cook.

A few weeks back, you, the Serious Eats Community mentioned that you wanted to see some more coverage of Latin cuisines from the Americas South of Mexico. Well you spoke, and we listened. Check back each week for recipes from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Peru, and beyond.

The first time I went to Colombia, my not-yet-wife warned me that I’d be eating arepas. A whole lot of them. What she didn’t prepare me for was the baffling array of styles they come in. If you’re like I was back then, you hear the word arepa, and you think “Oh, it’s that Venezuelan/Colombian corn cake, right?” And you probably have an image in your mind of a thick tortilla.

But to think in that narrow scope is the equivalent of a Colombian native hearing about bread and saying, “Oh, it’s that European wheat cake, right?” Within the first three days alone, I sampled over a dozen different varieties of arepa. The most basic in the Bogotá region are made with starchy white corn flour pressed into cakes about 1/4-inch thick, then griddled or grilled until cooked through, and served with butter, cheese, or hogao, a cooked mixture of onions and tomato.

The actual amount of water you’ll need depends on the brand of masarepa you use, but a good basic rule of thumb is to start with a 1 to 1 ratio (by volume), then add more water as necessary. I add about a half teaspoon of kosher salt and a half teaspoon of oil per cup of masarepa and water.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll find arepas stuffed with cheese and baked on hot stones in coal-fired ovens. Arepas with sour milk cheese worked right into the dough. Arepas de choclo, made like a pancake with sweet corn on a hot griddle. Arepas de huevo, golden yellow deep-fried puffy arepas split open and stuffed with an egg. Tiny arepitas eaten as a snack. Even packages of arepa-flavored corn chips. Move out of Colombia into Venezuela, and you’ll find thicker arepas split open and stuffed with fillings ranging from cheese and beans to pork or shrimp.

It’s a wide, wide world out there, but we’ve got to start somewhere, so today we’ll focus on four common arepa varieties, all made with the same basic dough.

Masarepa is dehydrated cooked corn meal. It is available in the Latin section of most supermarkets in wither white or yellow varieties. This recipe calls for white, but they can be freely substituted. Popular brands include Goya and P.A.N.
Crumbled cheese can be added if desired. Depending on the moisture level of the cheese, you may not need all the water. Colombian-style queso fresco is ideal. If you can’t find it, substitute cotija, ricotta salata, or feta.
Arepas can also be cooked on a greased panini press or a grill over low heat.
1 1/2 cups masarepa (see note #1 above)
2 ounces (about 1/2 cup) finely crumbled queso fresco (optional, see note #2 above)
1 1/2 cups water, plus more as necessary
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Kosher salt
2 teaspoons butter
Combine masarepa, cheese (if using), 1 cup water, and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a medium bowl and knead with hands until a dough is formed. Take a small amount and flatten it between your palms If the edges crack, knead in more water a tablespoon at a time until dough is supple and smooth but not sticky.

Divide dough into four even pieces and roll into balls. Working on a wooden cutting board or a regular cutting board with a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper on top of it, flatten each ball down to a disk about 5-inches in diameter and 1/4-inch thick.

Melt butter in a 12-inch cast iron or non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Add arepas and cook, moving them around the pan and rotating them occasionally, until first side is charred in spots and a dry crust has formed, about five minutes. Flip arepas and cook on second side until a dry crust has formed, about five minutes longer. Continue cooking, flipping every minute or so, until arepas are mostly dry and relatively stiff, about five minutes longer. Serve hot with cheese, melted butter, or toppings of your choice. Season dough to taste with salt, then cover and set aside for five minutes.

Special equipment
12-inch cast iron skillet or nonstick skillet

Each afternoon, 30 mammoth hunks of Sy Ginsberg–brand pickled beef brisket are boiled, then lined up for slicing in Bread Basket Deli kitchens across metro Detroit. For those who don’t toil in the cured-meat trade, the 12-pound pink and tan slabs filling up the kitchens are an impressive sight. Bread Basket owner Al Winkler burns through a lot of brisket—around 24,000 pounds weekly, which he says is more than any one restaurant in the nation.

Much of that corned beef will be piled into nine-ounce stacks and set between two pieces of rye or buried in an onion roll. But the scraps and shavings that aren’t pretty enough for a sandwich find a different home—the corned beef egg roll, which is exactly what it sounds like: cured meat bundled up in an egg roll wrapper and deep-fried.

Folding what was once considered waste into those wrappers represents what Winkler calls “found money.” But, five years after he wrapped his first egg rolls, shavings alone can’t meet the growing demand, and he’s stocking up on more 12-pound slabs of brisket to keep up.

“I started putting them on my menu four or five years ago, and they took off like a bat out of hell. I sell between 5,000 and 6,000 per week,” Winkler tells me.

White would go on to start Asian Corned Beef, which has since grown from one restaurant into a seven-location mini empire, with an eighth location on the way. ACB, as it’s affectionately known, now sells rolls for between $1.75 and $3.50. (The more expensive ones hold corned beef and cheese along with other ingredients, like steak, ground beef, or turkey.)

While the corned beef egg roll is a relatively simple affair, there are important differences among the many variations found across town. The best egg rolls are made to order, densely packed with higher-quality ingredients, and use the perfect ratio of corned beef to cheese, although some places have figured out how to make the concept work without cheese. At their peak, they offer appealing textural interplay between the soft meat, the crunchy shell, the melted cheese, and—if requested—sauerkraut or raw cabbage shreds.

The first corned beef egg roll was put together in 1978 by Kim White, a Vietnamese immigrant and onetime deli employee. A surfeit of corned-beef scraps might seem an unlikely problem, but in the late 1960s and through the ‘70s, Detroit had a robust corned-beef culture, with Jewish delis and corned-beef shops everywhere. In many ways, White’s creation mirrors the origin story of Detroit’s venerable coney dog: Exactly 100 years ago, in 1917, newly arrived Macedonian immigrants in Coney Island, Brooklyn, ladled a near-flood of thin beefheart chili across a frankfurter and steamed bun, then topped it with a handful of diced onions and a few healthy streaks of mustard. In doing so, they created a food that, when transplanted by Greek and Macedonian diner owners to Detroit, became so beloved that there are now “coney islands”—small, diner-like restaurants that take their name from the iconic hot dog—on seemingly every street corner in the city. Similarly, the corned beef egg roll White made put a little immigrant twist on an already-popular staple.

Oklahoma chili is, by all accounts, very similar to the Texas bowl of red. The main exception is that Okies are far less militant about the exclusion of ingredients like beans and masa. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s account of the history of chili, Oklahoma has never met a chili it didn’t like. Oklahomans embrace both the Texas and the Cincinnati styles, along with coneys and coney sauce. Perhaps because of this open-armed attitude, it’s rather hard to pin down exactly what the state’s chili style is, so I turned to a born-and-bred Oklahoman (my sister-in-law) for some insight. Her response? “Is Oklahoma chili a thing?” Yes, yes it is. And, although it’s hard to define, it’s (almost!) certainly got beans. He’s not alone. Many of Detroit’s other old-school, corned beef–driven delis, like Lou’s, Mr. Fo-Fo’s, and D-Dee’s, now wrap their own take on the egg roll. And, though it was invented in delis in largely African-American neighborhoods, you’ll now see versions of it on menus at Irish pubs, bars, and barbecue joints, like McShane’s, Old Shillelagh, Zeke’s, Pop’n Smoked BBQ, and more.

In fact, the corned beef egg roll is generating enough buzz in different corners of Detroit’s food world that there’s reason to believe we might be witnessing the birth of the metro Detroit area’s next great dish. If so, that raises a few questions: What exactly is it? Where did it come from? And, more generally, what does it take for a foodstuff to become a regional dish?
As the name suggests, a corned beef egg roll consists of an egg roll wrapper rolled and folded around a small pile of razor-thin salted and cured beef. The package is then plunged into 350°F oil and cooked until crisp. Gooey, white, mild cheese, like mozzarella, and sour cabbage are typically, but not always, part of the formula. Rolls come in a range of sizes: At some places, the average customer would need two to make a meal; at others, one four-inch wrap stuffed to the seams will suffice. In all its iterations, the corned beef egg roll works because of its simplicity, relying on that old, trustworthy combination of salt and fat.

Unlike many of the other chilis on this list, Cincinnati chili’s origins lie not in the Southwest but in New York and Greece. When the Greek-Macedonian immigrant brothers John and Tom Kiradjieff arrived in Cincinnati in the early 20th century, they, like many other Greek immigrant restaurateurs at the time, sold coneys, or hot dog sandwiches slathered with a spiced meat sauce. (Coneys and coney sauce are a separate yet still chili-related regional specialty, most popular in Michigan but prevalent across the Midwest.)  Oklahoma chili is, by all accounts, very similar to the Texas bowl of red. The main exception is that Okies are far less militant about the exclusion of ingredients like beans and masa. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s account of the history of chili, Oklahoma has never met a chili it didn’t like. Oklahomans embrace both the Texas and the Cincinnati styles, along with coneys and coney sauce. Perhaps because of this open-armed attitude, it’s rather hard to pin down exactly what the state’s chili style is, so I turned to a born-and-bred Oklahoman (my sister-in-law) for some insight.

The name “coney” points to the New York origins of the dish. As noted in The Great American Hot Dog Book by Becky Mercuri, the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce banned the use of “hot dog” to describe sausages, due to a negative association with dog meat. Many turn-of-the-century immigrants who passed through New York referred to the emulsified, encased meat solely by that name.

Another distinctive feature of Cincinnati chili is that it’s most often served on spaghetti, along with a generous helping of bright yellow shredded cheddar cheese. The chili follows a specific serving style, referred to by locals as “ways,” ranging from one to five. One means just chili; two means chili and spaghetti; three means chili, spaghetti, and cheese; four means chili, spaghetti, cheese, and beans or onions; and five means everything, including both beans and onions. In keeping with the hyper-regimented ordering style, there are other rules, including how the chili should be served (on an oval plate); how to eat it (one among many: use your fork to cut, not twirl, the spaghetti); and the necessity of developing your own style over time.

There’s a little bit of sleight of hand going on in this, and it’s not very deftly done, but the intent is clear: In Texas, it’s not chili unless it’s a bowl of red. The main rule of thumb is that it definitely cannot contain a filler of any kind, the most warned-against offender being beans. A healthy debate persists over whether tomatoes can be included, and a chili recipe published in the New York Times in January 2015 merited a full-article rebuttal in Texas Monthly, which targeted in particular the inclusion of coriander seed. In the end, the only way you’ll ever know whether something is a true Texas chili is if you’re Texan, at which point you can fight with other Texans about what does and doesn’t go in the dish. For the rest of us, “no beans” is about as definitive as it gets. While the stew also relied on cumin, beef, and some chili pepper, the brothers added ingredients that were more at home in a Mediterranean kitchen, like paprika and allspice, as well as the style’s distinctive combo of cinnamon and chocolate.

Springfield “Chilli”
Chili in Illinois isn’t chili: It’s “chilli,” with two l’s. The origins of this spelling are a matter of some conjecture, attributed either to an error by a sign painter at one of the state’s original chili parlors or to a desire to mirror the spelling of “Illinois.” According to local lore, the state capital of Springfield is also the state’s capital of chilli, as that was where Joe DeFrates, a legendary figure in the history of American chili (“the only man ever to win the National and the World Chili Championships,” according to the ICS), first started serving up his signature recipe, which consisted of tender ground beef, Hunt’s canned tomato sauce, a secret spice mix that included chili powder, and a dash of Tabasco.

The people of Illinois take their chilli just about as seriously as Texans take their chili, as evidenced by the passage of a joint resolution in 1993 by the Illinois House and Senate proclaiming the state “The Chilli Capital of the World” (perhaps a less provocative claim than if they had used the traditional spelling).