Home sweet home, who doesn't remember their home? Especially those smells that expedia the kitchen, filling us with excitement when we saw the table served, try the food of mom then became one of the best culinary experiences, as the saying goes: "the best food is my mother's" no matter where we are or the flavors that we taste the saying is repeated over and over again, socializing remember those special dishes that reminds us of our roots, our home.

Today I am going to tell you about a particular dish that my mother makes and as is customary every December at home this laborious dish is prepared, I am talking about the divine Christmas hallacas.

The Christmas hallacas is a typical dish in Venezuela that is prepared for Christmas dinner and is a very special dish because it brings us together as a family to share a delicious hallaca. For the preparation of the hallacas it takes at least two days to make them and it is necessary that everyone at home participates so as not to overload the head chef, our mothers, so the women and sometimes the men participate in some way in the preparation of this dish and who as a child while securing the hallaca with wick string did not secretly grab a sultana and the head chef would get upset and say: there are no sultanas left, do not eat them, I am not going to give you hallacas.

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In my house, my mother and I usually make the hallaca, not even my brother would participate because we would run out of stew and sultanas, so together we make an effort for two days to make approximately 250 to 300 hallacas. Today I am going to give you the recipe for the hallaca, there are several recipes because each home or state puts something different in it.

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The hallacas is a corn bun filled with a stew and different particular ingredients, acontinuacion tell you about a way to make hallaca

Ingredients

4 boneless chicken breasts
3 kilos of prime stew meat
2 kilos of pork
5 large paprika peppers
2 kilos of sweet chilli
3 kg onion
2 kilos of onion
2 kilos of ajoporro
2 kg garlic cloves
8 yellow corn flour
½ kilo of onoto
1 litre of oil
2 kilos of sultanas
½ kilo of capers
2 kilos of olives
½ kilo of pickles
Salt to taste
1 kilo of potato
1 kilo of carrots
10 eggs
1 panela de papelón chopped into small pieces
Pabilo thread to secure the hallaca
5 kilos of banana leaves.

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Preparation

Day 1:

Chop the chicken, the meat and the pork into small squares, peel and crush the garlic, wash all the meat and marinate it with garlic and salt and put it in the refrigerator until the next day.

Select the banana leaves, remove the veins from the leaves and chop them into squares. At home we chop three squares, one small, one medium and one larger.
Then wash each square in soapy water and dry it with a cloth and place it in the fridge.
The wick twine is chopped at a distance of one and a half metres each, I particularly like to tie the hallaca well.
Make the onoto oil by placing ½ litre of oil and the onoto in a frying pan and cook over low heat for 4 minutes.

Day 2:

Chop into small squares all the seasonings, the onion, the paprika, the chilli, the ajoporro and the onion.
Separately, cook the meat in a large frying pan with a little olive oil.
Then in another frying pan put the seasoning to fry with onotado oil and salt, then add it to the meat and add a glass of water, when the meat is about to turn off add water mixed with a little corn flour and move it so that it doesn't burn.
Turn off and leave the meat to cool a little.

Boil the whole potato, the carrot and the eggs, and when they are ready, cut them into large pieces.
Chop the onion into rings, the paprika into strips for garnish and place the desalted caper, the oil, the sultanas, the olives, the paprika chopped into small pieces, the potatoes, the carrots and the egg on different plates.
The dough is prepared by adding chicken broth, onotado oil, salt, liquefied chilli and three hundred balls are formed.

Elaboration of the hallaca

Place two banana leaves on the dough, place a small piece of oil on it, take a small ball of corn dough and stretch the dough on the leaf giving it a cylindrical shape, so that the thickness of the dough is less than one centimetre, Then with a spoon, add the stew, the onion ring and a ring of paprika, a piece of potato, a piece of carrot, a piece of egg, a piece of paprika, sultanas, capers and three olives.

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The square of the leaves are joined end to end and then half turned over making a rectangle, the third large leaf is placed to secure the hallaca and then it is tied with the wick thread making a kind of squares with the thread, at first it costs a little but that is the work of the children at home so when we are grown up we tie them with skill, this work is done mostly by the men.

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When it is boiling, salt is added and the hallacas are incorporated to cook them. The cooking time varies from family to family, we leave it for 30 minutes or before that we try touching the surface of a hallaca with a finger if it makes the sound of a little drum, it is ready and we take it out of the water, This preparation usually takes two full days but with 300 hallacas the family forgets about cooking for about 15 days, as they take the hallaca, heat it up and accompany it with chicken salad, pork leg and ham bread for the New Year's Eve party and the following days it is accompanied with salad and rice.

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Well friends this is the recipe that reminds me of the most exquisite flavors of home and as I always say the best hallacas are those of my mother hahaha. Thanks to the Steemskillshare community for allowing me to miss these flavours and to @jenesa for the production of the contest.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)