Best of Brazil

Although I’m not a fan of the traditional lime caipirinha, Jules adopted the national Brazilian cocktail as her own.  After much trial and error, I finally fell in love with the frutas vermelhas (red fruits, i.e. strawberries, raspberries, etc) version…

These are super easy to make and this simple recipe can be varied with any fruit you want for a caipifruta, substitute vodka for a caipiroska or even sake for a light caipisake.  The choices are endless, just be sure to use fine or powdered sugar so it dissolves well or a sugar substitute.

When you talk about steak in Brazil, you’re talking about picanha.  I’ve done a little research and although people say it is top sirloin or rump steak or tri-tip- I think it’s just a Brazilian cut of deliciousness.  Outside of the amazing picanha M made us in Sao Paulo, the best we had was at the  famous Garota de Ipanema.

I’ll admit we didn’t’ even know it was famous until we had been there like 4 times.  I kept seeing the song lyric t-shirts people were buying and had even thought “Is this place called Girl from Ipanema or something?” only to find out it used to be the site of the café where the songwriters used to hang out watch the now famous girl walking by each day.

I was obviously too focused on cooking and enjoying my picanha…

For those who know me, I’m sure you could guess I’m planning on getting one of these little table top grills when we get home.  It’s so great to have everyone cook their own steak to their preferred temp. 

And no, I don’t plan on eating another steak for a good 6 months.

Globo

One of the first things we noticed when we first came to Rio was all these people walking around carrying these huge clear bags of little white packages of food.  We didn’t know what was in those little white packages, but we vowed to buy one before we left.  For weeks we kept seeing them and kept wondering what in the heck they could be. 

We finally got some on one of our last days in Copacabana…

Inside was a very light (hence why the vendors could carry bags 3 times the size of themselves) and fried kind of cookie…

I think we ended up getting the salty one.  I don’t know what the other offer was, but we heard “sal” and went with it since we knew what it meant.  Remember my cow stomach incident?  Go with what you know.

It wasn’t sweet and tasted buttery.  We kept debating on what it actually tasted like, but I settled on pie crust. 

Mystery solved.

acai

I know we’ve been hearing about acai in the States for a few years now.  I’m sure Oprah had something to do with it.  Anyway, I know it is supposed to be some sort of miracle fruit that helps you lose weight.  Apparently, here in its home of Brazil it’s a cool treat…

We saw a woman with it while walking with M & S one day and they couldn’t believe we hadn’t had it yet.  I reminded them we were in Rio with zero Brazilian friends. What else should I be eating??? We turned the corner and found a little place that sold it.  It kinda looks like a big cup of yuck.  As we were waiting on the guy to make it, Julie turned to S and said “Oh, I can’t wait- looks delicious!”.  It actually was good.  They told us this one was a little too sweet because it is mixed with guarana syrup and the guy put too much.  I had another acai later and liked the sweeter one better. It comes with a little cup of granola that you sprinkle over it, so it is like a salty sweet frozen sorbet. Sort of.

It’s one of those things that as you eat it you can’t really figure it out so you just keep eating it.  I will say the one major downfall is how purple it stains your lips, mouth and teeth.  I was so embarrassed I had to hold my hand over my mouth through the lobby of the hotel. 

Just say nao!

Okay, so you obviously can’t come to Brazil and not go to a churrascaria. The thing is though, I hate them.  I hate Fogo de Chao and anything like it.  I don’t like the pressure I feel to eat, eat and eat so much meat.  I love meat, but it’s just too much. 

BUT…see first sentence.

We went.  I ate…

I thought the meat wasn’t so great anyway so I kept my card red side up most of the night…

I was almost happy the food wasn’t that great, although the sushi on the salad bar was delicious.  Again, I just don’t like the pressure or the experience of these places. 

I think their lollipops say it all…

feijoada

I mentioned before that feijoada is the national dish of Brazil.  I finally had it in Salvador, the birthplace of feijoada, and plan on having it every Saturday I have left in Brazil!  It’s supposed to be a Saturday dish and many places only have it on the menu those days.

Feijoada was created by the African slaves with the leftover parts of pork and beef being thrown out by their owners.    Being from the South, this style of cooking resonates deeply with me.  From our shared ugly pasts, both nations have benefitted from the talent of these incredibly strong African women making the very best of the very worst.  To have something good when everything else in their lives was so very bad, something to nourish their bodies and their soul- that is why this kind of food brings so much comfort when you eat it.  It was created to do just that. This is the kind of food I love to eat. 

Basically, and hey this kind of food is basic, it is a slow cooked black bean stew.  I found this recipe from Jaime Oliver who apparently got it from his dishwasher’s mother who is Brazilian.  I think it would be hard to mess this up.  I know everyone back home is chomping at the bit for fall weather and I think this would be an awesome dish to ring it in when it finally arrives.  I totally plan on making it for football game parties.

The only discrepancy I noticed with his recipe  is that it should be served with farofa as well.  Farofa is toasted manioc flour and is awesome sprinkled over beans and rice.  I’m fairly certain you can find it in the Latin America section of your grocery or at the very least the farmer’s market.

Proof of how much we all loved it…

who knew?

The captain of our boat in Paraty took us to a little island beach shack called Bamboo Hut for lunch one day.  We went with the super flakey and incredibly fresh fish bites…

 

and a  yummy heart of palm salad…

They really love their heart of palm here and I love them for it.

We also ordered fried shrimp.  They were pretty small and fried with the shells on. Being the American girls we are, we began removing legs and peeling the shrimp.  We were taking off all the batter and left with a measly amount of shrimp.  No way this is how to eat these pretty little things…

We finally gave it a go and popped the whole thing in our mouths.  Totally yummy. Technically we were popping off their heads, but I eventually gave up on that and ate them, tiny little shrimp brains and all. 

I did a little googling and couldn’t find any health risks or benefits from eating the shells, but we all survived and enjoyed a much less labor-intensive lunch to boot!

Turns out I let go of two of my food taboos, eating shrimp shells and heads and eating from a kitchen without an actual floor…

Good things can come of letting go.

Ceverza

Our friend from Sao Paulo told us about a saying in Brazil, “If the chopp is Bohemia, then the place is good”. Chopp (shop-p) is their term for beer on tap.  They have a solid light beer and I really like their dark which is a bit sweet.

Jules is a big fan of the Bohemia pilsner because a giant bottle costs about $5 USD…

street desserts

We had decided to hit up one of these carts before we had even found a place we wanted to have dinner…

Sadly for the Wife, almost everything had coconut and the one chocolate cake they did have wasn’t very good.  We got three different ones to try…

 

I think mine was the best and I’ve been scouring the internet for the recipe.  Not an easy task when you don’t know the name of the cake and don’t speak Portuguese. 

If anyone wants to try this recipe out and let me know if it came out like a very dense, sweet cake that looked like this…

I’d owe you one.

sao paulo

One of our friends from Sao Paulo is married to a chef. I can't tell you how much I wish we spoke the same language because I've always been dying to talk to her about food. We were in India together for God's sake! Sadly, we can only communicate with a mixture of broken Spanish and charades. I wish you could have seen the waiters in Costa Rica that use to laugh at us having breakfast together.

Although her husband still works with my wife, they have a 1 year old so they've settled in Sao Paulo. They took us to one of their neighborhood restaurants on Sunday.

As I've been eating waaaay too much beef here in Brazil, I went with the herb crusted baked chicken with mushroom risotto...



I always find baking chicken difficult. It always turns out so dry when you remove teh skin. I'm thinking they seared the crust on before baking. I could have asked the chef but that's a difficult one in charades.

Jules went with the pasta with prawns...



Very yummy.

As we were dining with So, who is a big believer in ending a meal with something sweet (hey, you don't have to twist my arm), we had dessert...



Oh my gosh, molten chocolate cakes are seriously my favorite dessert and this one was perfection.

Obviously, I was too busy eating to take a picture once we dug in. I have only had a chance to make these once and although I had a couple too many glasses of wine and overcooked it a bit (hey- it was New Year's Eve)the taste was spot on. Recipe I used is here.