FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Watermelon (Melancia)

The watermelons is one of the most universally-consumed fruits on our planet, and is a common sight in markets and supermarkets from China to Canada to Chile and on to the Congo. Genetic and botanical evidence indicates that the plant originated in southern Africa, where it still grows wild, but it was probably eaten in ancient Egypt and certainly had spread as far as China by the 10th century CE. It's route to Brazil was direct from Africa, and watermelon (melancia in Portuguese) is only one of the many Brazilian foods that arrived on this side of the Atlantic via the African slave trade.

Watermelons are members of the same botanical family as other melons (Cucurbitaceae), but are more closely related to plants like cucumbers than they are to cantaloupes or honeydews. If you think of a melon, or of their close relative the squash, the fruit surrounds a hollow core filled with seeds. Watermelons and cucumbers, however, are not hollow, and the seeds are carried in the flesh of the fruit. Watermelons and cucumbers also share the characteristic of being composed primarily of water - in the case of the aptly-named watermelon the percentage is 92% by weight. The preponderance of what remains is sugar (6% by weight). Watermelon is a good source of vitamin C, and has high levels of beta-carotene, and in red varieties lycopenes.

Brazil's annual production of watermelons is huge - in recent years approaching 620,000 tons annually. Almost all of Brazil has climate conditions that allow successful cultivation of watermelons, and most watermelon is consumed close to where it was grown. The commercial value of the crop is so high that the Brazilian government has proclaimed a National Watermelon Day - 26 November - and there is a National Watermelon Fair held annually in September in the city of Uruana, in the state of Goiás.

Most of Brazil's watermelons grown in Brazil are commercialized in the domestic market, though there is an export market to other countries further south in South America, such as Argentina and Chile, where climate conditions are less favorable to watermelon cultivation. Most watermelons are eaten fresh, though watermelon juice is popular in the thousands of juice bars that populate Brazilian urban centers.

In the past few years, the newest generation of Brazilian chefs has begun to pay attention to the culinary potential of the watermelon. Flavors of Brazil will post some of their recipes in the next few posts.

João Antônio Garrote - Brazil's Best Coffee Farmer

Recently, São Paulo's upmarket coffee-bar chain Santo Grão (Holy Bean) began to offer a new variety of coffee for prices that were shockingly high by Brazilian standards, even by expensive-metropolis São Paulo prices. An expresso costs R$16 (equivalent to about USD $10), and in packaged form this coffee sells for R$100 (USD $60) per pound. In a country where a pound of good coffee in the supermarket sells for a tenth of that price, Santo Grão's price for this new variety was nothing short of shocking.

So what is this coffee, and why does is command such a high price? The coffee is a single-plantation, single-hybrid coffee which comes from the Estância São Francisco (San Francisco Ranch) plantation in the town of Itaí, in São Paulo State. The owner/farmer of Estância São Francisco is named João Antônio Garrote, and in November 2010, his estate's coffee was named the best in Brazil in the 7th annual National Coffee Quality Contest sponsored by ABIC - The Brazilian Coffee Industry Association. In that contest, Sr. Garrote's Catuaí-variety coffee scored 89 out of a possible 100 points on such factors as aroma, taste, acidity, body, balance and sweetness. Complete results of the scoring can be seen here (in Portuguese only).

Following the contest, Sr. Garrote's award-winning coffee, of which only a very small quantity of 180 kg (400 lb) was produced, was sold at auction. Santo Grão's bid of R$12,320 (USD $19,720) for the lot was the highest at the auction, and thus the coffee-bar obtained Sr. Garrote's entire production for about USD $50 a pound. Suddenly, Santo Grão's selling price of USD $50 per pound doesn't seem unreasonable, and in fact, it's likely that other coffees they sell have a much higher margin. But only Santo Grão has the prestige of selling Brazil's best coffee, and in the marketplace that's probably worth a considerably higher amount than the $10 they make on selling each pound.

RECIPE - Rennet Cheese (Queijo Coalho)

Although huge amounts of Brazil's favorite cheese, queijo coalho, are produced industrially in large production facilities throughout the country, many people continue to make their own cheese at home, just as their ancestors have done for three or four centuries. Especially in its fresh form, which can be eaten within a few days of production, queijo coalho is relatively simple to make and doesn't require cheesemaker skills or industrial-level techniques or quantities. And the resulting cheese is uncomplicatedly delicious, with flavors that echo back through the culinary history of Brazil - it's instant nostalgia for most Brazilians, and instant passion for those foreigners who are lucky enough to taste homemade queijo coalho when in Brazil.

The recipe which follows is traditional and comes from a website called Nordeste Rural (Rural Northeast). On the site it's entitled Queijo Coalho Nordestino (Northeastern-style Queijo Coalho) but the recipe really doesn't vary much from region to region in Brazil.

Making cheese is something that very few of us imagine undertaking at home, but for adventurous cooks queijo coalho is a perfect home introduction to the art of cheese making. And once you have the recipe under your belt, you'll be able to begin to elaborate it, adding flavors such as herbs, aging it in the refrigerator, or even cellar-aging it if you have the proper conditions.

Note: This recipe calls for liquid animal rennet, which is NOT the same thing as junket rennet sometimes sold in the pudding/Jello section of supermarkets. It is available from cheese maker supply houses, and can be purchased online if it's not available in your area. A good online source in the USA is New England  Cheesemaking Supply Co. and a link to liquid animal rennet on their site is here.
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RECIPE - Rennet Cheese (Queijo Coalho)
10 quarts (10 liters) whole cow's milk, pasteurized
1 Tbsp. liquid animal rennet (see note above)
1/4 lb (100 gr) non-iodized or Kosher salt

In a large stockpot, bring the milk slowly to a boil, stirring regularly to prevent burning. Once fully boiling, remove immediately from the heat and let cool completely.

Add the liquid animal rennet to the cooled milk and mix completely. Let stand for 90 minutes to 2 hours, or until the milk has entirely coagulated. Using your hands, scoop out the curds of milk and put them in a large cheesecloth-lined sieve placed over a large bowl. Using your hands, mix and move the curds around in the sieve, pressing down lightly to extract additional whey. Continue the mixing process for 10 to 15 minutes, increasing pressure slightly toward the end of the process in order to drain off more whey. Let the curds rest in the sieve for half an hour for the last of the whey to drain off.

Lift the cheesecloth from the sieve, and squeeze it into a ball to complete the draining process. Place the curds on a large cookie sheet, or on a clean granite or marble counter-top. Meanwhile, bring 1 quart of the reserved whey to a boil, then let it cool slightly so that it's only warm. Sprinkle it over the curds, then using your hands mix it in until the mixture is smooth and homogenous. Sprinkle the salt over the mass of curds, and mix in thoroughly with your hands.

If you have cheese forms (available at cheese supply houses) you can proceed to pack the curds into the forms, pressing down to extract all liquid. If you don't have cheese forms, simply gather the curds into a new or totally clean tea towel, twist the towel into a ball shape and squeeze it dry. Then secure the towel tight around the ball of cheese and set it in a large sieve over a plate.

Place the pressed cheese in the refrigerator. After 24 hours, you will have very fresh, light cheese similar in texture to fresh mozzarella. You can leave the cheese to mature for up to 3 or 4 days, and it will become firmer each day. The flavor will continue to develop as well. Within 3 or 4 days, the cheese will be ready for slicing. Eat within one week.

Brazil's Basic Cheese - Queijo Coalho

Queijo coalho (Rennet Cheese) is to Brazil what Cheddar cheese is to England, or feta to Greece, or gouda to The Netherlands - it's the cheese that pops into mind when thinking about that particular country's cheeses. This cheese is made artisanally and industrially all around Brazil, and is eaten from one end of the country to the other. It has a number of variations ranging from soft and creamy fresh queijo coalho right up to sharply acidic and pungent aged varieties.

Even though queijo coalho is eaten everywhere in Brazil, it is associated in most people's minds with the northeastern region of the country, and it's there where the most traditional and artisanal methods of production still flourish. In cheese shops in metropolitan areas, in small mom-and-pop grocery stores in villages, and in roadside stands along country roads of the northeast, you'll find farm-fresh homemade queijo coalho for sale.

Queijo coalho is an essential ingredient in many traditional dishes, like the rice-and-bean combination Baião de Dois or the Brazilian version of shepherd's pie, arrumadinho. Because queijo coalho does not melt when exposed to heat, as most cheeses do, it can be grilled or fried. Grilled queijo coalho is a favorite snack for Brazilian beachgoers, who buy pieces of hot grill cheese on a stick from numerous ambulant vendors who pass by offering their wares. In restaurants, grilled queijo coalho is often served as a first course, accompanied by honey or molasses. The hot salty flavors of the cheese combine beautifully with the thick sweetness of the honey or molasses.

In the next post on Flavors of Brazil, we'll give you instructions on how to make your own queijo coalho at home. It's very simple, and doesn't really require any special skills or equipment. Once you've made it, you'll have the opportunity to see how changes in density, aging time, storage temperature and other factors can result in startling different taste experiences from one simple cheese.

BEEF CUTS - Lagarto (Eye Round)

#10 - Lagarto

As part of Flavors of Brazil's continuing series of posts on Brazilian cuts of beef today's offering is a cut of beef with a rather strange name in Portuguese - largarto. The word lagarto in fact has at least two entirely different meanings in Portuguese. It can refer to a cut of beef, or alternatively it means "lizard." What a relatively lean cut of meat from the posterior portion of a cow has to do with a saurian reptile is hard to say - maybe nothing except that they share a name.

Context is usually a clue to the correct meaning of a word when more than one meaning exists. When a butcher shop in Rio de Janeiro or Salvador posts a sign saying "LAGARTO - $R10/KG" there are very few if any potential customers that imagine they'll be receiving lizard meat! Especially at that price...

In any case, this cut is very easy to translate into English as the same cut is produced by American and European butchers. In English it's called eye round or eye of round.  Round steak cuts come from part of the animal's hip muscle and in the American system of butchering, round steak is subdivided into top round, eye (of) round and bottom round.

Lagarto (eye of round) is a very lean cut of meat and measures must be taken when cooking it to assure that it doesn't become dried out. One option is to braise it for a very long time in some sort of liquid. Another is to cook it at very high temperature, but for a very short time only, which allows time for the meat to cook but not enough time for it to lose its juices.

Brazilians use both techniques to cook lagarto. They often marinated it in red wine and then cook it in the wine to make a dish similar to a pot roast. Or it's put on a very hot grill and removed before it can dry out.

Lagarto is also the one cut of beef that Brazilians from all regions of the country are likely to eat cold. Cold sliced roast beef is usually made from lagarto in Brazil, and the cut is also used to make raw-beef carpaccio, an Italian import that has become hugely popular in Brazil.

Lagarto is quite an inexpensive cut of beef here in Brazil, and when properly handled it can be delicious. It's leanness means that it has fewer calories and less cholesterol than many other cuts of beef. Cooks who know how to treat it can take advantage of its relatively low price to produce an outstanding beef dish without an outstanding bill at the butcher shop!

Tomorrow, Flavors of Brazil will post a typically Brazilian recipe for lagarto. And we promise it will be for beefsteak, not for lizard!

RESTAURANT REVIEW - Alpendre (Fortaleza, Brazil)

Inside Alpendre

Yesterday, May 1, was the last day of an annual celebration of boteco culture in Fortaleza and a number of other Brazilian cities. Botecos are a Brazilian institution and well-loved by millions of gastronomic patriots. They are casual bars, often loud and raucous, that serve, in addition to beer and cocktails, a variety of comestibles - from snacks and nibblies to full meal portions. Flavors of Brazil has, in the past, covered boteco culture in a number of posts, including this one.

The annual celebration of the Brazilian boteco is simply and directly called Comida di Buteco (an alternatively-spelled way to say "Boteco Food." It began a few years back in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, considered by many Brazilians to be boteco heaven, and under the sponsorship of a nationally-distributed cachaça distillery, Ypioca, has branched out to a number of other Brazilian cities. This is the first year that Fortaleza has been a part of the festival. For two weeks, from the middle of April to the first of May, participating botecos enter one item from their menu into a city-wide contest for the best boteco dish. Diners who order that particular dish are givien an evaluation form to fill out and deposit into a ballot box. Once the festival is over, evaluation numbers are calculated to determine which boteco (and which dish) is the highest rated in the city.

It its first year, Fortaleza had 17 botecos which stepped up to the plate and presented a dish to contest for the championship. On Friday night of last week, Flavors of Brazil visited a boteco called Alpendre to try their dish and to cast a yea or nay vote for its dish, oven-roasted pork tenderloin served with seasoned manioc farofa and mango chutney . We chose Alpendre (the name means shed or shack) because it had already been named the city's best boteco in the 2010 edition of Veja magazine's annual food and drink ranking Comer & Beber, and we'd been waiting for an excuse to try it out.

Outside Alpendre

Alpendre started out five years back as a small shop selling local and artisanal foods and drink. Local cheeses, conserves, hot-pepper sauces, soft drinks and cachaça - that sort of thing. And during the day, that's still what Alpendre is. However, in the evening, they put plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk and patio in front of their shop, fire up the kitchen and turn themselves into a boteco. They've done that so successfully that now they've even begun putting up tables and chairs on the sidewalk across the street and opened another "shack" for service on that side of the street. Alpendre has become a boteco with a street down the middle - you might even say "A street runs through it", if you wanted to describe the place literarily.

During our visit the place was packed (both sides of the street). We arrived about 9:30 pm, which was lucky as we soon learned that the kitchen closed at 10, even though drinks are still available later into the night. We ordered the pork tenderloin so that we could enter our votes into the contest along with a bottle of Devassa beer - just one of a very extensive list of beers. The dish cost R$18, about USD $12, and was large enough to satisfy two of us. It consisted of about half of an entire pork tenderloin, roasted under a layer of almost-melted onion rings, sweet, moist and tender, served with a lightly seasoned and non-greasy farofa. Farofa is toasted manioc flour which has its own particular love-it-or-hate-it texture, and Alpendre's version is one of the best we've had recently. Alongside was a dollop of locally- and artisanally-produced mango chutney (available for sale in the shop). Our evaluation sheets, needless to say, gave the dish very high notes.

Oven-roasted pork tenderloin

Although we only ate the one dish, a look at the menu gave us incentive to return to Alpendre in the future. The menu is heavy on local cuisine and local dishes, including those innard-based dishes which are so loved here in Fortaleza - dobradinha, panelada and buchada. One very helpful feature of the menu is that most dishes are available in three sizes - small or large portions, or on a per-kilo basis for take-out. There is a very interesting cheese list on the menu, and a huge number of small-distillery cachaças, both local and national.

It's easy to see why this place was chosen the best boteco in the city by Veja magazine. It will be interesting to see how it ranks in the Comida di Buteco festival rankings, and whether patrons themselves agree with the food professionals who vote in the Veja rankings. I have a feeling that Alpendre will do very well - not having tasted all 17 dishes in the contest it's impossible to say if Alpendre deserves first place - but Flavors of Brazil will be very surprised if they end up near the bottom of the rankings.

RECIPE - Huntress-style Kid (Cabrito à Caçadora)

sertão

One more recipe for kid from Brazil's northeastern region, this time from the state of Pernambuco. Pernambuco is one of Brazil's smaller states, but was one of the first places on the continent settled by Portuguese colonists. Long and narrow, the state has a wide range of topography and climate which vary from the beaches and mangroves of the Atlantic coast to the harsh, stony semi-desert of the interior - the area known as the sertão. The word sertão itself is of obscure origin, but would best be translated into English as "outback". It's most likely that this dish originated there, as the domesticated goat is one of the few farm animals that can survive the difficult conditions of the sertão.

It's strange that this dish, kid braised in a tomato and red wine sauce, would be sub-titled huntress-style , as virtually all of the goats in the sertão are raised in farmyards, and there's little need to hunt them. Perhaps there's a connection to those Italian chicken and meat dishes cooked with a similar sauce called "alla cacciatora", which also means huntress-style. Something for a future doctoral candidate in historical gastronomy to write a thesis about.

Even if you're not a huntress, this dish would make a great way to introduce goat meat into your kitchen. Thickly-sauced and very substantial, it's best served with plain white rice, as they do in Brazil.

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RECIPE - Huntress-style Kid (Cabrito à Caçadora) 
Serves 8

4 lbs. (2 kgs.) boneless kid or goat meat, cut into large chunks
salt and black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp dried oregano
5 bay leaves
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp ketchup
1 cup tomato sauce
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1 bunch Italian parsley
1 bunch cilantro
2 green onions, whole
8 large leaves fresh basil
2 large cooking onions, coarsely chopped
8 cloves garlic
1 lb. new potatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
1 large carrot, cut into thick slices
juice of 2 oranges
2 cups pineapple juice
1 bottle dry red wine
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Place all the goat meat in a large mixing bowl. Boil a large quantity of water, and pour over the meat to cover. Let stand a few minutes, then drain, rinse and reserve the meat.

Season the meat with salt and pepper, then put it in a large saucepan with the oregano, mustard, ketchup, bay leaves, tomato sauce and tomato paste. Mix well, then heat over medium high heat. Cook until the meat has taken color and the sauce is thoroughly mixed.

In a blender combine the parsley, the cilantro, the green onion, , the basil, the chopped onions and the garlic with a little water, and blend. Add more water if required to complete the blending. Add this mixture to the ingredients in the sauce pan, stir completely to mix, then cook the mixture, partially covered, over medium low heat for about 45 minutes, or until the meat is tender. Add the orange and pineapple juices, the wine, the potatoes and carrots and bring it all to a boil. Cook for an additional 20-30 minutes, or until the meat is very tender, the vegetables are cooked and the sauce has thickened.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.