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 - Bolivian "Rice" (Arroz Boliviano)

Call it the "blame-it-on-the-neighbors" school of recipe naming. It seems that in many cultures a hotchpotch recipe, in which a motley of ingredients are tossed together, heated and served, is often characterized as coming from a neighboring country, even if that country has nothing to do with the dish. A childhood friend's less-than-gourmet Canadian mother often dished up something that she called "American Chop Suey", a casserole that combined low-grade ground beef, elbow macaroni, chopped onions and green peppers and undiluted Campbell's Cream of Tomato Soup. (She was a lovely and warm-hearted woman, just not a great cook). In French-speaking parts of Canada, the dish called Shepherd's Pie is knwon as Pâté chinois, (Chinese Pâté in English.)

The Brazilians aren't blameless in this regard. They have a very similar naming tradition and have been known to take the name of neighboring countries in vain when choosing names for Brazilian dishes. This habit seems particularly strong, naturally, in parts of Brazil which border other South American countries. In an earlier post on Flavors of Brazil, we highlighted a dish from the Brazilian border state of Mato Grosso do Sul called Sopa Paraguaya, which is neither a soup nor Paraguayan.

This dish, called Arroz Boliviano in Portuguese, is from the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which unsurprisingly has a long frontier with Bolivia. Although Sopa Paraguaya isn't a soup, Arroz Boliviano at least does include rice. It does, however, also include many, many other things. The list of ingredients includes ground beef, plantains, hard-boiled eggs, Parmesan cheese and french fries. With the exception of plantains, none of those ingredients are commonly associated with Bolivian cooking. It appears that this dish is just one more exemplar of the "blame-it-on-the-neighbors" school.
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RECIPE - Bolivian "Rice" (Arroz Boliviano)
Serves 8

3 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil
1 lb (400 gr) ground beef
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
salt to taste
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup fresh or frozen greeen peas
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/4 chopped green onion, green part only
6 cups cooked long-grain white rice
2 ripe plantains, peeled sliced into rounds, and fried in butter until soft
1 cup fresh or frozen french-fried potatoes
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
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Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil, then add the onion, garlic and ground beef and cook, stirring frequently and breaking up the beef, until the beef has lost all pinkness and the onion is transparent. Season for salt. Mix in the tomato paste, the peas and corn. Remove from the heat, then stir in the green onion. Reserve.

In a glass, ceramic or metal rectangular casserole spread out the rice in a layer. Spread the ground beef mixture over. Top with the banana rounds, the french fries and the slices of egg. Sprinkle the grated Parmesan over all. Put in the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the cheese has nicely browned and everything is heated through. Serve immediately.

Sopa Paraguaia - Brazil's Soup-Thats-Not-A-Soup

In casual spoken Brazilian Portuguese the adjective paraguaio (which literally means "from Paraguay") has come to mean fake/pirated/smuggled/fraudulent. For example "Olha aquele cara, com o relógio Rolex paraguaio" can be translated into English as "Check out that guy with the fake Rolex watch." Brazil has an extended border with Paraguay, much of it unpatrolled wilderness and Paraguay has a reputation in Brazil of being the source of imitation goods, drugs and arms smuggled across that porous frontier. At famed Iguaçu Falls, the city of Ciudad del Este on the Paraguayan side of the Friendship Bridge brims with shops and stalls selling less-than-legitimate goods which Brazilians often buy, smuggle back to more-expensive Brazil, and then complain about the quality or authenticity.

Much of the frontier between Brazil and Paraguay runs through the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul and historically there has always been trade in goods, people and cultures between that state and Paraguay. It is is Mato Grosso do Sul where one is likely to find a dish called Sopa Paraguaia, and it's anything but a soup. It's a savory dish made from corn meal, similar in many ways to cornbread, or even polenta. In the case of this dish, however, the name comes not from the fact that the dish is a "fake" soup but from the fact that the recipe has Paraguayan roots and is a common dish even today on the Paraguayan side of the border.

I'm not sure why the name for this substantial dish is sopa, whether in Paraguay or Brazil. The English word soup (and the Portuguese word sopa) both come from the Low Latin word suppa which means "bread soaked in broth." Perhaps in Paraguay, they preferred their bread to be corn bread and their soup to be more bread and less broth. Who can be sure? Certainly not Flavors of Brazil. But soup or not, the dish is delicious and satisfying. The next post on this blog will contain a recipe for this intriguing "fake" soup.

The Pacú - The Piranha's Delicious Cousin

With its lengthy coastline, Brazil is famous for the quantity and variety of salt-water fishes used in traditional cooking.  Less well known, but no less appreciated locally, are the fresh-water fishes that inhabit the wetlands of Mato Grosso's Pantanal or the rivers and streams of the world's largest river system, the Amazon. Fresh water fish is the primary source of protein for millions of Brazilians living in the tropical rain forest or in wetlands, and some of the dishes prepared with these fish have become part of Brazil's culinary patrimony.

One of the most valued of these fresh water fishes is the pacú, an inhabitant of both pantanal and Amazonian rain forest, and a close cousin of the legendary piranha. This large fish, which can range from 5 to 25 pounds (2 to 10 kgs), is also a favorite of sports fishers, who traditionally catch the fish with bamboo poles, using tropical fruits as bait. The fish can be caught in its natural habitat, or in ponds which are stocked for amateur fishermen who want to catch their own dinner.

One happy and successful pacú fisher.

And another who is showing his catch some love...

A recipe for roast pacú can be found by clicking here.

RECIPE - Bori-Bori

The images of Brazil that most foreigners carry in their heads come primarily from Brazil's coastal regions - Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, the Northeast Coast. Although it is true that the bulk of Brazil's population lives on or near the 4650 miles (7491 km.) of coastline, the interior of Brazil is enormous and ranges from Amazonian jungle in the North to California-like climatic conditions in the South.

The large interior states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul are in the region called the Central-West of Brazil. The adjacent map shows their location. They are home to the world's largest wetlands, the Pantanal, which teem with animal and bird life. Large amounts of land in these two states is agricultural - primarily ranching and culture of soy beans. Life here is not easy, and culturally the inhabitants often have more in common with locals in nearby Paraguay and Bolivia than they do with the sophisticated residents of Rio or São Paulo.

One of the most typical dishes of this region is known and loved equally in Paraguay, and demonstrates the cultural links across national boundaries in the center of South America. It's basically a variation on chicken and dumplings, but with local twists, and it's called bori-bori. Corn-maize (Portuguese: milho) is extensively cultivated in Mato Grosso, and the dumplings in bori-bori are made with a local cornmeal called fubá. Nourishing, simple and made with local ingredients - bori-bori is a truly-traditional dish from Brazil's Central-West.

For the complete recipe, click on "read more" below...