RECIPE - Kettle-fried Pork (Porco Caipira no Tacho)

Frying chunks of pork, boned or unboned, in its own fat (lard) is about as basic a way of cooking pork as possible. It's also one of the most delicious ways to serve up this exceptionally flavorful meat. Of course, you do have to kind of ignore the amount of fat you're consuming - this is not the world's most heart-healthy food no matter how you interpret the nutritional data.

Cooking pork this way is also one of the most universal ways to prepare pork for the table, or for the banana leaf, or for the bun or tortilla. Mexico's famous carnitas is just one example of pork cooked this way. It's often seen as well in China and Vietnam. Almost every culture that considers the pig an source of meat has some variation on the technique, probably because pork has a natural layer of fat just beneath the animal's skin, making frying in pork fat the most natural way to cook the beast.

In Brazil's "far west", the large interior states of of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás, ranchers and farmers have been cooking pork this way for centuries, since the first cleared the land for cultivation and for pastures. Originally, the pork was cooked in a large cast-iron kettle over an open fire, and even today, the best results are obtained from the use of a cast-iron Dutch oven or deep frying pan. The Portuguese name for this dish - porco caipira no tacho - simply means country-style pork in a kettle.

Just as few would argue that the best way to eat Mexican carnitas is inside a freshly made corn tortilla, many Brazilians will tell you that porco no tacho is best served in a sandwich made from fresh French rolls. The recipe, however, originated on ranches and farms hundreds or even thousands of miles from the nearest French bakery, and so the most traditional way to eat this dish is with plain white rice and beans, the two bases of all Brazilian cooking.

When buying the pork for this dish, you can ask the butcher to give you the fat from the shoulder or fresh ham and render your own lard, or you can but lean pork and lard separately. The former option is the cheaper of the two, by far, and the most authentic. You can find out how to render lard simply at home here.
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RECIPE - Kettle-fried Pork (Porco Caipira no Tacho)

3 lbs lean pork from pork shoulder or fresh ham (trimmed fat can be used to render lard), cubed
6 cloves garlic, finely minced
3 Tbsp salt
lard
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The day before cooking, mix the cubed pork, minced garlic and salt well, and refrigerate overnight. Bring to room temperature the following day before cooking.

Using a cast-iron Dutch oven, kettle or deep frying pan, melt the lard over medium-low heat. You should have at least 2 inches of fat in the bottom of the kettle or pan. When the fat is entirely melted, increase the the cooking temperature and heat until the fat is hot but not smoking.

Add the chunks of pork, stir once or twice to completely coat the meat with fat and fry, stirring only very infrequently, until the meat is browned and crispy on all sides.

When the meat is cooked, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, and drain thoroughly on paper towels. Let cool to room temperature and reserve.

The pork can be served at room temperature, or it can be reheated in a dry, well-seasoned cast iron pan before serving.

RECIPE - Sopa Paraguaia

This non-soup soup from Brazil's state of Mato Grosso do Sul - a recipe the local inhabitants learned from their neighbors across the line in Paraguay - is a close relative of American cornbread or johnnycake. And of the firmer varieties of Italian polenta. It is a savory cake made from cornmeal and is typically served as a side dish as part of a meal focused on some sort of stewed meat. The sopa is used to sop up the juices from the main dish and provide some carbohydrate balance to the meal.

Sopa paraguaia is real campfire food, and traces its origins back to the early days of exploration in this once-remote corner of South America. The explorers carried dried cornmeal with them on their expeditions as reliable sources of fresh food were scarce. Mixed with water and cooked in a Dutch oven over a campfire, the cornmeal became sopa paraguaia. Today it is enjoyed for its flavor quality rather than being a food of necessity and has been enriched with the additional of milk and cheese. A simple dish from simpler times - Brazilian/Paraguayan comfort food.
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RECIPE - Sopa Paraguaia
Serves 10

2 Tbsp butter
3 small onions, thinly sliced
4 cups whole milk
2 cups water
salt to taste
1 lb (500 gr) coarsely grated white cheese - mozzarella or Jack
4 cups yellow cornmeal (polenta)
4 eggs, separated
1 Tbsp baking soda
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Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

In a large saucepan, melt the butter then add the onion slices and fry until they are just lightly golden. Add the milk and water. Season for salt. Bring to a boil and cook until the onion is completely softened. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

In a large mixing bowl combine the cornmeal and the grated cheese. Add the milk/water mixture and, using a wooden spoon, mix completely to form a batter. Add the egg yolks and baking soda and mix completely.

Beat the egg whites into soft peaks and then fold them gently into the cornmeal mixture. Do not over-mix. Spread the batter in a casserole or lasagne pan, place it in the preheated oven, and cook for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpic inserted into the center of the sopa comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let let cool slightly before cutting into serving squares.

RECIPE - Piranha Soup (Caldo de Piranha)

The famously ferocious piranha is an important food fish in the Pantanal - the world's largest wetland, located in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. During the half of the year that the Pantanal is flooded, its rivers, lakes and ponds abound with fresh-water fish, including the needle-toothed carnivorous piranha. The piranha is generally caught with nets, though their teeth wreak havoc on the nets and they must be extracted with extreme care if one wishes to avoid a nasty bite. But residents of the Pantanal prize the flavor and taste of the piranha so much that they are willing to take the risks involved in fishing for them.

It's extremely unlikely that most readers of Flavors of Brazil will ever have the opportunity to make the following recipe at home. Availability of piranhas at local markets is a definite problem, and fishing for them entails risks. The geographical range of this fish has traditionally been restricted to South America, although, according to Wikipedia, aquarium piranhas have been introduced into parts of the USA with specimens occasionally found in the Potomac River and Lake of Ozarks. So readers from those regions just might be able to impress friends and family with a nice bowl of piranha soup. In any case, here is how it's made.

(Although I haven't tried to do so, I think this soup could be made successfully with many different small fresh-water fish, such as perch, walleye, pike, etc.)
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RECIPE - Piranha Soup (Caldo de Piranha)

4 lbs (2 kg) piranhas - approximately 10 fish
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 Tbsp. fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 Tbsp. white wine or cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. neutral vegetable oil
2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 large green bell pepper, cut into julienne strips
1 medium onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. green onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped
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Clean and descale the fish, then cut them into large chunks. Place the chunks of fish in a large bowl and season with the garlic, lime juice, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste, then let marinate in the refrigerator for approximately 2 hours.

In a large saucepan, heat the 1/2 cup of oil over medium high heat. Add the chunks of piranha and stir-fry for a few minutes. Lower the heat, then add boiling water to cover the fish, bring to a boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes, or until the fish is tender. Remove from heat, then using a strainer remove the fish from the broth, reserving both.

Let the fish cool. Once cool enough to handle, carefully remove all bones from the pieces of fish. Place the fish pieces and the reserved broth in a blender or food processor and blend until you have a smooth mixture. Reserve.

In another saucepan heat the 2 Tbsp. oil over medium-high heat. Add the tomatoes, the green pepper strips and the copped onion and cook until the onions are transparent and all ingredients are softened. Add the piranha broth from the blender or food processor to the pan, then the chopped green onion and cilantro. Heat thoroughly.

Remove from heat, pour into a serving tureen and serve immediately, accompanied by hot-pepper sauce.

Recipe translated and adapted from Viagem Gastronômica através do Brasil by Caloca Fernandes (Editora Senac)

Eating Carnivorous Fish - The Piranha

The family of small fresh-water fish known zoologically as Characidae and known commonly as Piranhas has a reputation for ferocity and voraciousness that is more legend than reality. That's not to say that piranhas are vegetarians, or that they are dainty eaters, it's more that everything most people know about piranhas is exaggerated at the minimum and untrue at the maximum. The myth that a school of piranhas can reduce a human or cow to an instant skeleton appears to have been started by American President Theodore Roosevelt's visit to Brazil in the early 20th Century. At that time local Amazonian fisherman, in a successful attempt to impress the President blocked off a tributary of the Amazon with nets and filled it with starving piranhas. They then chopped up a slaughtered cow and threw the pieces into the stream, thereby setting off a "feeding frenzy" which quickly reduced the carcass to bones and provided the inspiration for hundreds of bad horror films, including at least 6 films entitled Piranha, according to IMDb.

There are about 40 species of piranhas in the rain forests, marshes and rivers of South America, ranging from Venezuela to Argentina, although the majority of piranha species live in Brazil - either in the rivers of the Amazonian Basin, or in the wetlands in west-central Brazil known as the Pantanal. What all piranhas have in common is a mouthful of particularly sparp and efficient teeth which makes them very good predators, their small size notwithstanding. All species of piranhas have a single row of sharp teeth in both jaws; the teeth are tightly packed and interlocking and are employed for rapid puncture and shearing.

Although the name piranha is well-known outside South America, it's not very well known that humans eat many more piranhas every year than the other way around. In the Amazonian region of Brazil, as well as in the Pantanal in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, piranhas are a commercial food fish and are eaten in a number of ways - grilled, roasted, and in soups and broths. As the piranha is a small and relatively bony fish, it takes of number of them to serve a tableful of eaters - but as the rivers and streams of the region abound in them, they can be eaten in good conscious. And with a bit of a sense of revenge.