The pabellón criollo or Venezuelan pavilion is one of the most representative dishes of our cuisine. Full of colors and varied flavors, possibly evokes the union of the ethnic groups that make up our town, carries the unique and warm aroma of this land.

The pavilion is a dish that has accompanied us throughout our history, it has grown with us, with small variations in the different regions of Venezuela, but always maintaining the unique and pure essence of the national dish par excellence, it is representative of the diet Creole urban mainly, it is difficult to specify the origin of the dish, but already in the late nineteenth century was recognized in Caracas.

It is made up of white rice, mechada meat, black beans and fried plantain slices, all arranged in an ornamental way, highlighting to the maximum their color, aroma and flavor. In this dish, a balance is created between all its components, both in color and in taste, each one is an important part of the Venezuelan culinary.

Another of the most common comments of our Criollo Pavilion is that it represents the three great Venezuelan cultures, the European one through the WHITE rice, the indigenous one, through the meat to be MORENA, and the African one through the typical BLACK color of the caraotas. Although it really is a visual more than historical allusion, since the rice really comes from Asia and the caraota from Mesoamerica.

Ingredients
You will see many ingredients, since it is a dish that really is a combination of dishes, so we go in parts:

1 kg of shredded meat, whatever we want (meat)
A dessert spoon of salt (meat)
Half onion (meat)
A chopped red pepper (sofrito)
1 chopped green pepper (sofrito)
Half chopped onion (sofrito)
2 tomatoes, to be able to be ripe and chopped (sofrito)
4 soup spoons of fried tomato (sofrito)
3 cloves of crushed garlic (sofrito)
Cumin, cilantro, spicy paprika and oil to taste (sofrito)
500 grams of beans or black beans, you have to soak for 10 hours (beans)
Half onion (beans)
2 garlic cloves (beans)
Salt and paprika to taste (beans)
One cup of rice (rice)
Half onion (rice)
One clove of garlic (rice)
Water, oil and salt to taste (rice)
A mature male banana (chopped)

Steps
Each component of the dish is very easy to prepare, the only thing is that you have to coordinate the cooking times of each one. And some ingredients such as caraotas or rice can dislocate a little while we prepare the rest of the recipe:

1- We begin by boiling the beans (beans) with the onion and garlic, since it is the slowest.

2 - Boil the meat and onion in a pot with water, cover and let cook for an hour adding salt. Separate the meat, let it cool, we dismechamos, save the broth and crush the onion.

3- We start the sofrito frying the onion and the peppers. After 3 minutes add the crushed garlic and also the salt. Another 3 minutes and add the ripe tomato

4- Add the shredded meat to the sofrito and stir, then add the broth and the crushed onion. Let cook for 5 minutes

5- Add the four tablespoons of tomato and let cook over medium heat for 25 minutes. Then add the cilantro and spices and let it cook until it dries a little.

6- Now the rice, although we can leave it ready before. First we fry it in the pot with the onion and garlic, then we cover it with water and leave it for about 20 minutes.

7- Fry the ripe bananas and also grind the arepas.

You can make ready the rice and the beans with time and then put with the meat and the sofrito. But you see that none of the ingredients or components is very complicated to do.

FUENTE