Hi @macchiata what an honor that you followed the recipe<3. I'm very happy that you did it and I noticed that the results were very successful; they look delicious.
Previously in my post of: Arepa Andina accompanied with avocado and caraota I answered a doubt you had regarding why corn flour cannot be used to make the Andean arepas. There I explained the difference between corn flour and wheat flour. Traditional arepas in Venezuela are generally made of corn flour, except that in the Andes it is a type of arepa similar to a bread, round and flat like corn arepas, cooked in the same way, but with the texture of a bread. It is usually eaten with butter and white cheese for breakfast, we must remember that each state has its own diet :) In this way, most of the people love to eat arepas made of wheat flour for breakfast, which, in my opinion are very tasty, and can be filled with whatever we have at home, mostly: grated cheese, avocado, or as you did, mayonnaise and beef.
Now, regarding some of the doubts that arose during the preparation of the recipe. In my case I used 220 grams of flour for the number of people I was going to prepare the recipe for. Of course we can modify the ingredients, there is no problem.
The second question you had was whether the arepa should be burned. It should not burn. The first thing is to make them thin so that they are not too thick so that our arepa is not raw inside. The thing about applying oil in the frying pan; if you can do it, put just a little bit and expand it.
The next question that came up was How do we know if it is ready? as mentioned by @sirenahippie for the preparation of these recipes we use our ear, however one of the techniques is to prick our raw dough with a fork, this will undoubtedly help our arepa to cook internally. And clearly the color, how you made them is fine. They are not even raw, and they are not burnt.
Regarding the disaster with the dough. It is normal that it happens, and more because we are using wheat flour, so the technique is in the kneading, it serves for the gluten to develop and contribute to evenly distribute the gases produced by the yeast. Generally, it is recommended to knead for 20 minutes, if it is manually of course.
At first, when you put your hands on the dough, it will be sticky and difficult to pull together. Therefore, you should continue to work the dough with your hands, form a ball, flatten it and shape it. Keep doing this until the dough is no longer sticky and it is possible to shape it into a ball without it falling apart. If the dough doesn't seem to stop being sticky, I recommend sprinkling more flour on the surface and continue kneading. Also, you can apply a little flour to your hands so that the dough doesn't stick too much.
I hope and this could have helped you, I send you greetings and thank you truly for the appreciation and sharing your rewards with me. success! <3
haha yes, when I found the recipe, I instantly made it. So, thankfully you were replying quick too 😄 I was like " oh no, is this okay?" then I read your post again carefully one more time and realized that it's okay to use wheat all purpose flour. The egg I use was quite huge which is also why I reduced the quantity of the egg too.
Yes, that's my first problem when frying it. I checked on youtube some looks beautiful some looks way too burnt. So, it seems that I need to make them a bit more thin and even, otherwise, they'd pop and burnt. I had some thin ones but they were way to burnt. lesson learned.
Thank you for all those tips, I really appreciate it.