For cooking the thicker arepas that you can eat like a sandwich:

1) Follow the original recipe here, or watch this video here.

2) Pinch off golf ball-sized bits of moist dough and roll into smooth balls. Roll them out with a rolling pin, or place the dough balls between two sheets of oiled wax paper and press down with a cutting board. This is easier as you can do several at a time.

3) Heat up oil or butter in a frying pan and grill each side till crispy and golden brown. This is how you get the lovely crust of the arepa.

4) Heat up the oven to 350F and finish cooking in the oven for about 10 minutes.

5) Remove from oven, slice, and serve with whatever filling you fancy. Anything! Even just a pat of butter. Other fillings might be scrambled egg, black beans and avocado, cream cheese, mozzarella and tomato.

This morning we had little snack-size arepas with spinach and mozzarella, tomato and gruyere, sweet potato and salsa verde, and chipotle jackfruit with salsa verde.