How to make Venezuelan cheese tequeños

How to make tequeños stuffed with cheese .

For more than a year, visits from Venezuela have not stopped growing. Close to a million Venezuelans have visited the blog last year and little by little, Venezuelan recipes have a greater presence on the blog.

I not only like arepas , ham bread , corn empanadas or black roast , tequeños have a place in my heart and cuisine. We prepare them a lot, because my little one loves them.

This simple recipe is a gastronomic institution in all Venezuelan parties and celebrations, the famous Tequeños , simple, cheap and very rich. With your permission I have incorporated a Galician ingredient into this recipe, San Simón da Costa cheese . Very similar to the one you use but with that Galician touch that drives me crazy … and that I recommend.

Galician cheese from San Simón da Costa is a 45-day-old smoked cow’s milk cheese with birch, with a creamy and smooth flavor perfect for this recipe.

Although these are the classic tequeños, with fried dough and stuffed with cheese, we can find a wide variety of adapted recipes. The best known and that I teach you to prepare today is the salty tequeño, dipped in guasacaca ( Venezuelan guacamole or avocado cream) or the typical pink sauce.

But you will find sweet tequeños filled with chocolate, cheese with guava candy or quince jelly , the latter I prepared yesterday on Instagram and were very successful.

I leave you with the recipe that I liked the most, with handmade dough and a cheese from San Simón da Costa by Daniberto ( Galicia Quality e) that takes away the hiccups. Just yummy.

Preparation of the dough from tequeños

1. We put the wheat flour in a large bowl except for about 2 tablespoons of flour that we leave to fatten the dough.
2. With a spoon we make a hole in the center of the bowl, add the diced butter and the egg.
3. Add the warm water and salt. Beat with a wooden spoon from the center outwards and gradually mix with the flour.
4. We continue stirring with our hands what begins to be the dough, for now it will be a sticky but firm mixture.
5. We prepare the area where we are going to knead, the kitchen counter is perfect. 
6. Sprinkle the area with flour, remove the dough from the bowl and start working it. Refining is very important so that it is more elastic, we stretch the dough like a churro and twist it in a spiral several times.
7. At the end we put together and knead again for about ten minutes. This is the trick that makes the dough look perfect.
8. After those 10 minutes we can manipulate the dough more quickly since it will be elastic and homogeneous. The correct flour measurement is ” until the dough does not stick to your hands “, but it should not be abused either. Remember that the amount depends on the flour that you are going to use, since they do not always come from equal millings, nor is the type of wheat the same.
9. We are turning the dough into a ball. We take the previous bowl, flour it and put the ball inside. We cover the bowl with a cotton cloth for about 30 minutes.

Shape and filling of tequeños

1. We cut the dough into two pieces and on the kitchen counter we work it with our fingers until we have a flat surface.
2. Sprinkle a little flour and continue stretching with the help of a rolling pin.
3. When the dough is fine, cut into uniform strips. With them we line the cheese sticks without leaving any gap so that the filling does not escape when we fry them. The cheese with the heat of the oil can come out and we do not want this to happen.
4. The first ones are very easy to make, the cheese ones. We are rolling the dough around the cheese as if they were the bandages of a mummy.
5. The ham and cheese ones. First the cheese, then we cover them with a slice the same height as the cheese, they should be thin slices. And then we cover with the dough.

Frying and final presentation of tequeños

1. The only difficulty of this recipe is in the temperature of the oil, since if it is not very hot the dough falls to the bottom, but if it is too hot they will brown very quickly and the cheese will not be creamy inside.
2. The first batch will serve us to try the following ones and they will be delicious.
3. We put our tequeños into the pan. When they are golden we remove them to an absorbent paper. That way they would be perfect, but I would let them cool down a bit in case we get burned.

We already have our tequeños for any party, whether Venezuelan or not.

And if you want to prepare the guasacaca you are going to need 1 cup of avocado, peeled and cut into cubes, 2 hot peppers, ¼ cup of onion, ¼ cup of coriander, 1 clove of garlic, 3 tablespoons of vinegar, 3 tablespoons of oil, the juice of one lemon and salt to taste. You crush everything and leave it in the fridge, easy, right?

As always, at the end of the entry you have the photos of the step by step. Do not miss any detail of this recipe for tequeños stuffed with cheese traditional and famous in Venezuela.

Origin and history of the tequeños

• The history of the tequeños dates back to the end of the 14th century. Legend has it that a cook from the City of Los Teques . She made a food in a cylindrical shape, with the remaining dough of the typical cakes of the area and placed a little soft white cheese in the shape of a bar inside it.
• At this time the city of Los Teques was a vacation area for the wealthiest families in Caracas , and its fame even reached the capital, becoming a classic in all kinds of celebrations.
• Others say that its name is due to the Baéz family , who invented the pasapalo , very similar to the tequeño. This family took their passports to the station “El Encanto” to “Caño Amarillo ” in Caracas and when they arrived they were so famous that people shouted: ” The Tequeños arrived ! ”Referring to the people of Los Teques and over time this name replaced the pasapalo.
• The most daring say that they are of Zulu origin, that they were born in Villa del Rosario at the beginning of the 20th century, created by a man of Italian origin and surname Franco. Whether one or the other is the true story, this dish has crossed borders and proudly carries its name throughout the world, a tribute to the chefs of Los Teques.