We lived in Caracas growing up. Lela and most of my aunts and cousins lived in a town called Villa de Cura, almost two hours south west of the city. As kids, we would travel from Caracas to Villa de Cura almost every weekend. On Sundays, before heading back to Caracas, Lela would make a Roast Beef. Everyone would come; aunts and uncles and all my cousins. About 20 people would come together for Sunday lunch: lots of food, lots of people, lots of laughter and kids running around. Kids would sit in a separate table from the adults, usually in the kitchen, or sometimes in the red corridor.
The plate was always composed of a piece of roast beef, cauliflower gratin and my favourite, eggplant pudding.
The roast was always very very juice and soft. The cauliflower gratin is a mix of cauliflower, carrots, béchamel sauce and Parmesan cheese. The eggplant pudding is a recipe unique to my family. Apparently it was pass down from past generations and no one has a written down version. And every time we ask for the recipe Lela’s reply is “A little of flour, a little of milk powder, a little of this, a little of that”, and she always got it perfect! The eggplant pudding is a sweet affair but you don’t eat it as a dessert. And we usually eat it with roast beef and cauliflower. I don’t remember ever having it otherwise. It has eggplants, flour, milk powder, milk, butter, shredded cheese and sugar. You blend it all and put it in the oven until is it becomes dark on top, which means the sugar has caramelized.
Gabriela Flores is a culinary nutritional expert, food coach and a wellness enthusiast. She’s the co-founder and kitchen goddess at Bliss B4 Laundry: Inspirational Events for Mind, Body, and Soul. She’s made it a mission to find ways to transform the human body from deprivation to abundance. Her passion is food: to get in the kitchen and experiment with new ingredients to make them delicious, nourishing and extract their power to heal.