Venezuelan Creole Pavilion

Pabellón Criollo Venezolano is the name of this dish in Spanish, the national language of Venezuela. Venezuela was once a colony of Spain. As you will see, there are really several recipes that when done, are then put together to form an entire dinner. The main components show the racial mix in  Venezuela's racial population, with the brown/reddish brown stew, the white rice and the black beans. None of the recipes is hard to do, but the meat just takes time to cook. I checked more than 20 recipes for this dish, many by people at least claiming to be Venezuelan, and there were generally only slight variations, often about tomatoes in the stew part of the dish, with some calling for tomato paste, others calling for tomato sauce and still others using chopped tomatoes. At the other end, a recipe or two did not use ANY tomatoes, in ANY form. Also most recipes used red bell pepper, but a few used green bell pepper, so I liked the idea of using both; thus, my version. For the rice, you can certainly leave out the garlic, but many, not all, of the recipes I saw used garlic in some quantity in the rice, that's why I added it. Almost all of the recipes showed plantains, but there were a couple that did not note their use as an accompaniment. Buen provecho, my friends! 

Ingredients:

To cook the meat:
1 pound of flank steak, cut into three pieces or more, so as to fit into the pot you will use
water + 1 heaping tablespoon beef soup base (also called, "bullion," by some)
1/2 large onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt (the soup base has lots of salt)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

While Venezuelans boil/simmer the meat, I prefer to bake things in such cases. So, you can cook the meat on top of the stove, or in the oven. Cut the steak into 2 or 3 parts, so it will fit easily into a pot. Add some water to the pot and mix in the soup base. Add the meat and half of a large chopped onion, the salt and pepper, then add more water to just cover the meat. If cooking on the stove, heat to boiling over high heat, then cover and reduce heat so that the meat gently simmers. Simmer until the meat is very tender, likely 90 minutes or more. For using the oven, cover and bake at 300 F for one hour, then reduce heat to 275 F. Bake until meat is very tender (I let it bake for 2 3/4 hours, total. Let the meat cool. Use a couple of forks or just use your fingers to pull/tear the meat apart into strands.

For the stew, after the meat is cooked:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 large red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 large green pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons tomato sauce
4 tablespoons broth from the cooked flank steak
shredded steak

 Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the other half of the large chopped onion, half of the chopped red bell pepper, half of the chopped green bell pepper, saute for a couple of minutes, then add 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Saute a further couple of minutes. Add the cumin, Worcestershire sauce and mix in well. Now add the shredded steak along with the broth and tomato sauce; mix well, then over low heat, cook until the liquid is reduced, stir the meat mixture occasionally.  

For the black beans:
2  15 ounce cans black beans, partially drained (drain off half of the liquid in each can)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 large red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 large green bell pepper, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion, the chopped red and green pepper and saute a couple of minutes, reduce heat to low and then add the chopped garlic and saute until the onion and peppers are softened. Add the black beans and part of their liquid, the oregano and salt and pepper, stir well. Cook over low heat for about 12 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently, to prevent sticking.    
 
For the rice:
1 cup white rice
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups of water

Follow the instructions provided by the brand of rice you buy, but otherwise, generally, bring the water to a boil, then add the ingredients and stir gently, only once. Reduce the heat so that the liquid just barely simmers. Put the lid on the pan and let the rice cook 20 minutes without removing the lid. 

For the plantains:
2 ripe plantains
1 cup olive oil
salt

Peel and thinly slice the plantains. Add enough oil for an inch or 2 in a heavy duty skillet; cast iron is good for this, but not a necessity. Heat the oil, but it should not be smoking hot. Fry the chips in batches, removing them to paper towels to drain them as you go. Add salt to taste.

WORD HISTORY:
Creole-This word, distantly related to "create" and to the "crease" parts of "increase" and "decrease,"^  goes back to Proto-Indo-European "kreh/kerh (“to grow, become bigger”). This gave Latin "creare," which meant, "to make, to produce, to create." This then gave Latin "criar," which meant, "to rear or to raise or to bring up young (that is, to help them grow up)." This then produced "cria," meaning, "a person brought up in one's home, or in a particular region or area." This gave Portuguese "crioulo," which meant, "European or African person born in Brazil" (then a colony of Portugal), which differentiated the Portuguese born in Brazil from those native to Portugal. Spanish either borrowed the term from Portuguese or developed its own version from the Latin, but I'm not certain on this. The Spanish ("criollo") and Portuguese seem both to have influenced French, which had "creole," with likely reinforcement by Latin itself. With Portuguese, Spanish and French all Latin-based languages, with many similar words, it is difficult to separate out all of this. English borrowed the word in the early 1600s, from French. The meaning of the word varies from area to area, as in American English, the word came to mean "person of French ancestry in Louisiana," circa 1800, or perhaps a little before, but in British English it generally now refers to a person of African descent from (that is, born in) the West Indies, and further, it can refer to the mixed language of these people of the West Indies or of Louisiana. 

^ "Create," "increase" and "decrease" are not original English words, but rather, they were borrowed into English.