RECIPE - Left-over Rice (Arroz de lambiragem)

Since the vast majority of Brazilians eat rice every day, usually at the mid-day meal, it's not uncommon for there to be some rice left over when the family stands up from the table at the end of the meal. No one, especially a Brazilian home cook, wants to run out of rice in the middle of a meal, so the temptation is to cook just a little bit more than what a cook estimates will be eaten during a meal.

If the left-over rice is a small quantity, it can be thrown out or composted, but if there's a significant quantity, it's usually put away for eating at a later time. At least in frugal Brazilian kitchens it is. Brazilians strongly believe that it's a crime (if not a sin) to throw away good food. Perhaps this is a relic of Brazil's past, when poverty meant that people sometimes starved to death, or perhaps it's just that it's just good Brazilian common sense not to waste food. Whatever the reason, from time to time there will be left-over rice in the fridge, ready to be re-used and recycled.

So what do Brazilian cooks do with this rice? This recipe, from São Paulo chef Carlos Ribeiro, is a restaurant-style reimagining of a traditional Brazilian way to serve left-over rice. In the recipe, rice is combined with whatever other left-overs might be on hand and fried in the style of Asian fried rice. It make perfect economic and ecologic sense to empty the refrigerator of all left-overs, and it makes great culinary sense, as the dish is tasty, satisfying and filling.

A recipe such as this one is a framework for creating a dish, not a step-by-step gastronomic manual. Therefore, there are no quantities given and all ingredients (except rice) are optional.
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RECIPE - Left-over Rice (Arroz de Lambiragem)

cooked rice, white or brown
whole eggs, lightly beaten
butter
neutral vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste
left-overs of the day (meat, chicken, fish, potatoes), cut into bite-sized pieces
ripe tomato, seeded and chopped
onions, chopped
olives, pitted and chopped
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In a large frying pan, combine the oil and butter and heat until the butter is melted and the oil is hot. Add the eggs and cook without stirring until done. Remove from the pan, rip into strips and reserve.

Add all the other ingredients except the rice to the pan. Cook and stir for a minute or two, then add the rice and continue to cook, stirring frequently until the rice is very hot. Mix in the reserved egg, season for salt and pepper and serve immediately.

RECIPE - Drayman's/Maria-Isabel's Rice (Arroz de Carreteiro/Maria-Isabel)

We'll leave it up to the cook how he or she wants to baptize this dish when presenting it at the dinner table or on the buffet. As mentioned in yesterday's post on Flavors of Brazil, in the south of Brazil the dish has one name and in the northeast an entirely different one. The choice is yours. Either name, though, will yield the same delicious result.

More than a traditional side dish (because of the presence of the dried/salted meat) and less than a main course, arroz de carreteiro/arroz Maria-Isabel is nonetheless considered to be a side dish in Brazil, where meals tend to be large and dependent on abundant quantities of protein. If you want to serve it Brazilian style but don't want overkill, it pairs well with a small, thin grilled steak of any kind and a green salad.

The dish requires carne de sol, which is Brazil's traditional salt-preserved beef. It's available in butcher shops and supermarkets everywhere in Brazil, but normally not outside the country. Click here for an earlier article on Flavors of Brazil on how to make a good version of carne de sol in your freezer.

This recipe is for a very traditional, basic dish - very similar to how it might have originally been served. Some modern versions add sausage, other meats and additional seasonings, but this recipe is the stripped-down original.
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RECIPE - Drayman's/Maria-Isabel's Rice (Arroz de Carreteiro/Maria-Isabel)
Serves 6

2 lbs (1 kg) carne de sol (or charque)
4 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil
2 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves, garlic
2 cups long-grain white rice
boiling water
3 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

24 hours befor cooking, cut the meat into small cubes, place in a bowl or ban, cover with cold water at soak in the refrigerator, changing the water at least 3 or 4 times, to desalt the meat. When ready to cook, drain and reserve.

In a heavy deep pan, heat the oil, and then fry the onion and garlic until the onion just begins to brown. Add the meat and continue to cook, stirring very frequently, until the meat is nicely browned.

Add the rice and continue to cook, stirring regularly, until all the rice is coated with the oil and is turning transparent. Pour in boiling water to cover the rice and to reach two fingers' height above the top of the rice. Reduce heat, tightly cover the pan and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all the water and is tender. This dish shouldn't be too dry, so if it seems to be so, add a small amount of water at the end of the cooking process, just enough to moisten the grains. Remove from the heat and let stand for ten minutes before serving.

Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

One Dish, Two Names - Drayman's or Maria-Isabel's Rice

Gauchos with drayman's cart

From the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, bordering Uruguay and Argentina, all the way to Brazil's semi-arid northeast is a distance of around 2000 miles (3200 km) as the crow flies and significantly farther by road. So it's not entirely unreasonable that there are large differences between the two regions - economic, racial, meteorological and cultural differences among others.

But there are also similarities shared by these regions at opposite ends of the country. They are united by language, by religion, by politics and by the media. Although they are miles apart, Rio Grande do Sul and the northeast are in many ways more similar than Rio Grande do Sul and either of its next-door neighbors, Uruguay or Argentina.

The proof of this is in the pudding. Or at least, if not in the pudding itself, somewhere in the kitchen. Many dishes, foodstuffs and techniques can be found both in Brazil's south and in its north, yet are absent just across the border in neighboring countries. Sometimes this is evident - a dish is known and loved across Brazil but totally unknown in neighbouring countries - but sometimes it's not. Although Brazilians in different regions might be sitting down to identical dishes at the family dinner table, they might not be aware of that, as they each call the dish something different.

arroz carreteiro

An prime example of this is a very traditional Brazilian dish of rice cooked with salted-dried meat. In southern Brazil it's known as Drayman's Rice (arroz de carreteiro) but in the northeast it's called Maria-Isabel's Rice (arroz Maria-Isabel). Same dish, different names. In fact, even the regional name for the salted-dried meat that is essential to this dish varies - in the south it's called charque (a Portuguese word related to English jerky) and in the north carne de sol (meat of the sun).

History makes it easy to see how southern Brazilians came to call the dish Drayman's Rice or Carter's Rice. This region was originally settled by ranchers who raised vast herds of cattle on the open plains of the region. The cowherds who tended the cattle often spent months out on the plains, far from the nearest ranch. A network of draymen, using ox-driven carts, serviced these remote locations, carrying anything that the cowherds needed that wasn't available locally. These draymen spent months on the trail following the herds, and they needed to be self-sufficient in everything, including food. Charque doesn't require refrigeration, nor does rice. All that's needed to prepare these ingredients is water and heat. Combining the two ingredients into one dish made sense, and once the practice of cooking rice and charque together became established, the dish was baptized Drayman's Rice.

In colonial times, the dry interior or northeast Brazil was also an area of cattle ranching, with the same settlement patterns as in the south. Here, presumably, draymen also travelled the trails of the backland bringing goods to the cowboys and ranchers, and presumably they ate the same dish of rice and dried meat. But for some unkown reason, in this region they chose to honor a certain, unknown Maria-Isabel when it came to naming the dish, ignoring drayman entirely. Who Maria-Isabel was, or what her association with the dish was, is lost to history and likely will never be known. But her name lingers on in the kitchens of northeastern Brazil.

Call it Drayman's Rice or Maria-Isabel's, Brazilians love the dish and it's a standard of traditional Brazilian gastronomy. Not fancy, but filling, nutritionally balanced, and comforting, it's an essential dish in the Brazilian culinary pantheon.

Next post, we'll provide a recipe for the dish.

RECIPE - Rice Pudding with Caramel and Fleur du Sel (Arroz Doce ao Caramelo com Flor de Sal)

Lucas Corazza

Yesterday's recipe for Brazilian rice pudding was the homemade original - today's is the downtown, day-after-tomorrow chef's showcase recipe. It is the creation of São Paulo chef/patissier Lucas Corazza, chef-in-command of the kitchen at the city's Bar.bar Gastronomia. In an article in May's issue of Brazilian food and wine magazine Prazeres da Mesa, Corazza advocates for the inclusion of rice as a legitimate ingredient in the sweet kitchen, and explains how he finds the grain useful in the creation of new pastries, desserts and sweets.

His recipe for rice pudding combines a fairly standard rice pudding preparation with a refined salty-sweet topping of cream-caramel and fleur du sel. Best served in a tumbler, or even better, a stemless wine glass this sophisticated dessert dresses up sometimes-dull rice pudding for a night on the town, São Paulo-style.
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RECIPE - Rice Pudding with Caramel and Fleur du Sel (Arroz Doce ao Caramelo com Flor de Sal)
Serves 10

For the rice pudding:
4 cups water
2 cups long-grain white rice
2 cups whole milk
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
2 vanilla beans
powdered cinnamon to taste

For the topping:
1 cup creme de leite (see note above)
1 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 tsp fleur du sel

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Rice pudding:
Combine the rice, the water, the vanilla beans, opened with seeds scraped out, and the whole milk in a pressure cooker. Seal the pressure cooker, heat over medium high heat and cook for six minutes from the time the cooker takes pressure. Remove from heat, let cool to release pressure, then pour the mixture into a mixing bowl.

Stir in the sweetened condensed milk, the cover the mixture with plastic film and refrigerate.

Caramel:
Heat the creme de leite over low heat, but do not let it boil. Put half of the sugar into a heavy saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until it caramelizes. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the creme de leite very slowly, stirring all the while, until you have a homogenous mixture. Return the pan to the heat and bring it briefly to the boil. Remove from heat, stir in the fleur du sel, let cool to room temperature and reserve.

Mounting the dish:
Using cups or glasses as above, fill them half full with the chilled rice pudding. With a spoon, carefully pour a layer of caramel on top, then serve immediately.

RECIPE - Traditional Rice Pudding (Arroz Doce Tradicional)

Contemporary chefs around the world, no matter how avant-garde they may be, are also rooted in time and place to the culture which they inhabit. Ferran Adrià , considered by many to be the demi-god of molecular gastronomy, is intensely Catalonian and his dishes, no matter how unworldly they may appear, exhibit influences, ingredients and techniques that have been part of Catalan cuisine for more than a thousand years. Brazil's most inventive present-day chefs, at the same time that they are looking at food in entirely new ways and through 21st century lenses, still want their cuisine to be Brazilian - not European, not Asian, not even South American. Brazilian.

It's interesting and instructive, therefore, to "compare and contrast" (as our 7th grade English teacher loved to ask us to do) traditional Brazilian recipes with their contemporary re-imaginings. To see what's remained and what's been left behind. And to see what's been added, and how it's used.

To this end, we're going to publish today a very simple, very traditional and utterly lovely Brazilian rice pudding (arroz doce) recipe. Back in October of 2011, we posted a regional rice pudding recipe from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul (click here to go to that page) and in that post we discussed Brazilian rice pudding and its relationship to egg and milk based sweets from the Portuguese culinary repertory. That recipe, however, varied from the most basic recipe with the addition of lime peels and the absence of egg. The recipe below, taken from the website of Deli Art Cake Creations, a São Paulo sweet shop and caterer, is simplicity itself - nothing but rice, milk, sugar and egg yolks, spiced with a  cinnamon stick.

Tomorrow, we'll head to the other end of the Brazilian culinary spectrum with a recipe for rice pudding that could only come from the 21st century.
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RECIPE - Traditional Rice Pudding (Arroz Doce Tradicional)
Serves 4

1 cup long-grain white rice
4 cups whole milk
1 cup granulated white sugar
4 egg yolks - free-range if possible - lightly beaten
2 inch stick of cinnamon
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The day before cooking, combine the rice with 2 cups of the milk in a medium bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Before beginning to cook, combine the remaining 2 cups of rice and the beaten egg yolks in a mixing bowl. Reserve.

Put the rice and the milk in which it soaked into a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the milk reaches the boiling point, reduce the heat and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the rice absorbs most of the liquid. When the rice is almost dry add the additional milk/egg yolk mixture, mix thoroughly, then add the sugar and the stick of cinnamon. Bring to the boil again, then reduce heat and cook, stirring constantly until the milk has thickened and the rice is just beginning to dry out - the rice should have the consistency of risotto. Remove the cinnamon stick and discard.

Remove from the heat and let cool. You can serve it once it reaches room temperature, or refrigerate at that point and serve cold.

RECIPE - Shrimp and Rice, Espirito Santo Style (Arroz com Camarão Capixaba)

This wonderfully flavorful dish of rice and shrimp - halfway between risotto and paella - comes from the coastal state of Espírito Santo and is a perfect examply of how Brazilian cooks make use of clay cooking pots, something we've been featuring recently on this blog.

Espírito Santo lies along Brazil's southeastern coastline, bordered on the south by Rio de Janeiro state and on the north by Bahia. The coast has miles and miles of wonderful beaches, backed by the same spectacularly beautiful granite domes and mountains that famously frame Rio de Janeiro's landscape. Because of the long coastline, Espírito Santo's gastronomy is dominated by fish and seafood and the state is famous for its unique way of making fish and seafood moquecas - highly seasoned stews. Espírito Santo and Bahia are both famous for moquecas, but each has its own tradition. Bahian moquecas use coconut milk seasoned with dendê oil to provide the base for the stew; in Espírito Santo the broth is based on coconut milk, tomatoes and onions.

Espírito Santo's coastal cuisine isn't all about moquecas though - equally loved are rich and hearty main course dishes combining rice and any number of varieties of seafood. In Portuguese these dishes are rather prosaically called simply "rice and...". For example, rice and shrimp or rice and mixed seafood. In English they'd more likely be called risotto or paella, though technically they are neither. The rice used in regular long grain, so they really aren't risottos, which require Italian short grain rice. And they aren't really paellas either as they lack the essential saffron color and flavor and never mix seafood with chicken or sausages.

What does make these rice dishes special is that they are always cooked in clay pots. In Espírito Santo there is even a particular locally-based type of clay cookware known as Goiaberas, manufactured artisanally in Vítoria, the capital of the state. (Click here to read more about this type of cookware). The pots from Goiaberas are of a perfect shape and form to make this recipe, though it can easily be made in any type of pot or pan that you normally use for stovetop cooking. The resulting dish might not have the charm and Brazilian-ness that cooking in Goiaberas wear does, but those two whom you serve it will not complain, guaranteed. It's a wonderful dish for a casual supper with guests - informal, beautiful and tasty.
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RECIPE - Shrimp and Rice, Espirito Santo Style (Arroz com Camarão  Capixaba)
Serves 4

4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp annatto, ground or paste (can substitute sweet paprika)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
9 medium tomatoes, cut into small cubes
2 medium onions, chopped, not too finely
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
salt to taste
2 lbs (1 kg) medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup green or black olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
6 cups cooked long grain white rice
2 stalks hearts of palm, halved horizontally (optional)
1/2 small tomato, cut into four wedges
grated parmesan to taste
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In a large, low clay pot (or other pot or pan, like a large skillet or saucepan) heat the oil, then add the annatto or paprike and crushed garlic. Cook for a minute or two then add the chopped tomatoes, the onions, the cilantro and salt to taste. Cook for a few minutes, or until the tomato begins to break up. Add the shrimps, the coconut milk, the peas and corn and half of the olives and mix thorough. Lower the heat, cover the pot or pan and cook for ten minutes.

Uncover the pot or pan, stir in the cooked rice and continue cooking, stirring regularly, until the rice is heated through and has absorbed the liquid.

Serve at table in the cooking dish or other decorative serving dish. Garnish the surface with the tomato wedges, the palm hearts and the other half of the olives. Serve with grated parmesan on the side.

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.

RECIPE - Broccoli Rice (Arroz de Brócolis)

Rice is the universal side dish on a Brazilian dinner plate. Often accompanied by cooked dried beans, but not always so, rice is served daily to an overwhelming percentage of the almost 200 million Brazilians. A meal without rice is almost unthinkable for many Brazilians, and when Brazilians travel overseas, it's commonly the scoop of rice that they miss most on non-Brazilian plates.

Even when there are other carbohydrates served at the same meal, rice doesn't relinquish its obligatory status. It's common to see rice and potatoes served on the same plate, or rice and pasta. Sometimes, in fact, all three appear on the same plate - apparently Brazilians haven't heard of the one-starch-per-meal concept.

Often Brazilian rice, though, isn't the plain unadorned, unseasoned white rice that is associated with most Asian cuisines. Many times rice in Brazil is closer in concept to what Asians and Middle Easterners call a pilau or pilaf - rice cooked in a seasoned broth, often with small quantities of meats, vegetables, nuts or dried fruits.

One of the most popular such dishes in Brazil is rice with broccoli (Portuguese: arroz de brócolis). Broccoli served on its own as a side dish is not common in Brazil, perhaps due to its relative priciness, but rice with broccoli is a common sight on buffet tables or lunch or dinner plates. A small quantity of broccoli, chopped up and mixed in with white long-grain rice, adds color and flavor to the rice, adding both to its visual appeal and its flavor.

Broccoli rice is very quick and easy to make and doesn't take much longer to make than plain boiled rice. Try it as a side dish with grilled fish or chicken, or with beef or lamb stews. It's also a particularly good way to get kids who are fussy eater to eat their greens too.
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RECIPE - Broccoli Rice (Arroz de Brócolis)
Serves 4

1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 small onion, finely minced
1 medium bunch broccoli, crown only (reserve the stem for another use), finely chopped
salt to taste
3 cups cooked white long-grain rice, hot

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In a nmedium saucepan, heat the oil, then add the onion and garlic. Saute the vegetables until soft but not browned. Add the chopped broccoli, cover the pan, and sweat the vegetables for about 3 minutes, or until the chopped broccoli is tender. Add the rice and stir vigorously to combine all the ingredients and heat the rice thoroughly. Taste and season for salt, then serve immediately.

RECIPE - Diamantina Rice Cake (Bolo de Arroz)

Diamantina, in the state of Minas Gerais, is rightly known as a tourist "gem" - not just because of the vast quantity of diamonds and other gems that were extracted from the hills which surround it, but because of its well-preserved historical center and its relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Part of the town's charm comes as well from its gastronomic riches - Diamantina has preserved its culinary traditions as well as it has its architectural, musical and religious ones.

One of Diamantina's true gems is a woman named Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha. Her story is told on the Brazilian gastronomic-tourism website Sabores de Minas, and although she isn't a professional cook, doesn't have a restaurant or even work in one, the one dish she is known for - a rice-flour cake - has made her famous, and beloved, in Diamantina and beyond.

Her is her story from the site, translated by Flavors of Brazil:

The ringing of church bells announces another religious festival in Diamantina. At the same hour, Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha's oven advises her, "the rice cake is done." In Diamantina during the Festival of the Divine and the Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary, in July and October respectively, Dona Zenília has a mission: to make a thousand pieces of rice cake for each celebration. And to accomplish that, her marathon begins early. "I spend from 7 am to 8 pm making these treats", she says. And so, when the bells announce the beginning of the festival, she is ready to distribute her delicious sweets to all the festivals' celebrants. "It's a tradition. I've been doing it for 18 years. My grandparents did the same thing, and passed on the recipe to my mother, who taught me," she explains. The cake is a type of blessing she bestows on those who participate in the religious celebrations. "If there was no rice cake, the festivals just wouldn't be the same," she says. Golden in color due to the presence of squash, the pieces of cake she distributes are fluffy, moist and with a light flavor.  This light goodness is real sustenance for the pilgrims, as during the festival they must climb the steep, narrow streets and staircases of the city. It doesn't do to lose one's breath, and Dona Zenília's cake is a guarantee of strength for the thousands who walk in procession during the festivities. Her cake is a blessing for the pilgrim as well as a treat for their palates.

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RECIPE - Diamantina Rice Cake (Bolo de Arroz)
Makes one tube-pan cake

3 cups raw long-grain white rice
3 cups cooked long-grain white rice, cooled
2 cups granulated white sugar
6 whole eggs
one medium acorn squash, or equivalent amount of any other winter squash, cooked and mashed
1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup neutral vegetable oil
1/2 lb grated pizza-type mozzarella
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups (1/2 liter) milk
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Grease and dust with flour a tube-shaped cake pan. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).

In a small saucepan, heat the butter in the oil. Only heat until the butter melts, then remove from heat, cool and reserve.

In a food processor, process the raw rice until it is finely ground. Reserve.

In the bowl of a KitchenAid-type mixer, beat together the ground rice, the cooked rice, the eggs, the mashed squash. Alternatively use a hand mixer and a large mixing bowl. When you have a homogenous mixture, slowly add the butter and oil mixture. Then slowly add the milk while continuing to beat the mixture until you reach a cake-batter consistency.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, place in the preheated oven and cook for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool completely on a cake rack, then unmold and cut into small single-serving pieces.

RECIPE - Virado à Paulista

In yesterday's post, which concerned the efforts of an informal group of young chefs to preserve the traditional cuisine of São Paulo, we mentioned that one of that city's councilmen has asked the municipal heritage committee to enshrine a dish called virado à paulista in the roll of São Paulo's intangible patrimony.

Should his efforts be successful, virado à paulista will join a number of traditional festivals, dances, and other foods considered worthy of preservation in the face of global homogenization. To be worthy of such august company you'd think that virado à paulista might be a complicated or extravagant dish. Nothing of the sort - virado à paulista is a common mid-day meal in thousands of downtown and suburban restaurants and lunch bars. It's often served as a restaurant's prato feito (blue-plate special). It's never expensive and sometimes it's downright cheap. But its supporters feel that it is worthy of preservation efforts due to its long history, and also to the emotional attachment that many paulistas have to this dish they've eaten since their childhood.

Basically, virado à paulista is a full-meal plate consisting of white rice, cooked beans, manioc flour, a slice or two of garlic sausage, a thin steak, sauteed kale, a fried plantain and sometimes a fried egg. Nouvelle cuisine this ain't. Satisfying and filling, a virado à paulista is fuel for the whole day - for the body and for the paulista soul.

Although there are innumerable variations on the basic virado à paulista theme, this recipe is a fairly typical rendition. Feel free to modify it as desired - everybody has their own favorite way to make virado à paulista.
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RECIPE - Virado à Paulista
1 portion

3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
3/4 cup cooked dried beans, with their broth (click here for recipe for beans)
1/3 cup farinha (dried, toasted manioc flour)
4 oz. (100 gr) sliced garlic sausage (kielbasa, linguiça or similar)
8 oz. thin beefsteak (round steak or other)
salt to taste
7 leaves kale, destemmed and cut into thin strips
1 ripe plantain, peeled and sliced
cooked white rice
1 fried egg, sunny-side up (optional)
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In a medium saucepan, heat 1 Tbsp of the olive oil, then saute the onion and garlic until transparent and softened but not browned. Add the beans and their broth and heat through. Mix in the manioc flour, adding a bit at a time and mixing each batch in completely before continuing. Reduce heat to very low and cook for about five minutes, or until the manioc flour is softened. Remove from heat and reserve, keeping warm.

In a small frying pan, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and fry  the sliced sausage until browned and crispy. Remove the sausage to a small plate and reserve, keeping warm. Season the steak with salt to taste, add the final Tbsp olive oil to the pan in which the sausage was fried and fry the steak to the desired degree of doneness. Reserve the steak, keeping warm. Still using the same frying pan, briefly stir-fry the kale - just until it takes on a brilliant emerald color. Seaon with salt and reserve. Finally, fry the plantain in the same frying pan.

Assemble the plate - put a scoop of white rice and a scoop of the beans on a large deep plate. Place the steak to one side, and top with the sausage slices. Add the kale and banana slices, and if desired, top it all with a fried sunny-side-up egg. Serve immediately.

RECIPE - Top-hat Rice with Curly Parma Ham (Arroz de Cartola com Pixaim de Parma)

To top off Flavors of Brazil's Rice Week, we thought we'd finish with this "Top Hat" recipe from noted Brazilian chef Madalena Albuquerque who works out of Recife's Just Madá restaurant. So far these week we've concentrated on traditional Brazilian recipes featuring rice, but it's not just in such recipes that one finds rice featured - contemporary re-imaginings and new creations coming from Brazilian chefs also highlight the importance of rice in Brazil's diet.

This recipe takes as its starting point a traditional Brazilian dessert called cartola (the word means top hat) whose main ingredients are plantain bananas, cheese and cinnamon. In this recipe these ingredients are mixed with rice. Thes rice is then plated with a cilantro confit and topped with crispy slivers of Parma cheese to create a startlingly non-dessert, decidedly savory, cartola.
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RECIPE - Top-hat Rice with Curly Parma Ham (Arroz de Cartola com Pixaim de Parma)
Serves 4

For the curly ham
1/2 lb (200 grams) thinly sliced Parma ham, cut into chiffonade

For the cilantro confit
1 small bunch cilantro, leaves only
1 small bunch green onion, green part only
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Extra-virgin olive oil
salt to taste


For the broth
2 cups (1 liter) water
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 stick cinnamon, about 1 in (2 cm) long
For the rice
1 cup (200 gr) white long-grain rice
6 oz mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese, cut into small cubes
1/3 cup cachaça
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 plaintain, not overly ripe, cut into small cubes
powdered cinnamon to taste
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To prepare the ham:
Heat an oven to 350F (180C). Place the shredded ham on a cookie sheet, separating the shreds as much as possible and cook for about 20 minutes, or until the ham is browned, crispy and curly. Let cool on cookie sheet and reserve

To prepare the cilantro confit:
Mix all the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, using as much olive oil as desired to moisten the confit. Reserve.


To prepare the rice:
First, in a saucepan or stockpot combine the ingredients for the broth, bring quickly to the boil, reduce heat and reserve, keeping at the simmering point. In another saucepan, heat the oil, then add the chopped onion and garlic and saute briefly or until the onion is transparent but not browned. Stir in the rice and continue to saute until the rice becomes mostly transparent. Add the cachaça and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the cachaça evaporates. Add half of the broth, stir to mix completely and bring to the boil. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat, until all the broth is absorbed, then add more broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, making sure that the broth is absorbed before adding more. When most of the broth has been added, check for doneness of the rice - add more broth only if necessary. Stir in the cubes of cheese and plaintain and the cinnamon stick. Remove from heat, cover the pan and let stand for about 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and reserve.

To plate:
In each of four deep soup plates, spread one quarter of the confit on the bottom, then mound a quarter of the rice in the centre of the plate. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon if desired, then top with the crispy ham. Serve immediately.

Recipe translated and adapted from Prazeres da Mesa magazine.

RECIPE - Rice with Carrot and Cashew Nuts (Arroz com Cenoura e Castanha)

Rice Week races to its conclusion...

Most of the time Brazilians are quite content to eat a portion of plain boiled white rice with their mid-day meal (for Brazilians the idea of eating rice at night is rather strange). But sometimes the rice that accompanies their beans and beef or chicken is tarted up a bit - flavored with chopped or shredded vegetables, fruits or nuts. The idea is a bit like the pilafs and pullaos that are found in the great crescent from India, through Iran and Iraq and on to the Levant - the vegetables and seasoning ingredients are briefly sauteed, then the raw grains of rice are fried for a short time and finally the rice is steam-cooked in broth.

The flavor is richer and more complex than plain rice, and the nutritional profile is improved by the addition of vegetables. Vegetables that are commonly mixed with rice and treated this way are kale, broccoli, onions and, in this recipe from the tiny northeastern state of Alagoas, shredded carrots. And to make the dish even more party-fancy, cashew nuts are tossed in to provide additional crunch and a nice flavor boost.

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RECIPE - Rice with Carrot and Cashew Nuts (Arroz com Cenoura e Castanha)
Serves 8

5 cups light chicken or vegetable broth (can use water if desired)
2 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup shredded or julienned carrot
2 cups long-grain white rice
1 cup roasted, unsalted cashew nuts
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Heat the broth until simmering. Reserve at simmer point.

In a large saucepan with a cover heat the oil over medium-high heat and saute the chopped onion until it's transparent but not browned. Add the rice and the shredded carrot and cook, stirring constantly just until all the rice is coated with oil and the grains are beginning to turn transparent. Stir in the cashew nuts, then add the 5 cups of hot broth.

Let the broth come to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pan tightly and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Remove from heat, leave covered and let stand for 5 minutes.

Put the rice in a decorative serving bowl, fluff with two forks and serve immediately.

RECIPE - Rice with Crabmeat (Arroz de Caranguejo)

Moving right along with Flavors of Brazil's Rice Week...

If one thought about how to categorize the many thousands of Brazilian rice recipes (which one has been doing here at the blog) it seems that they might be grouped into four basic categories. First, there are the recipes for making white rice itself with only a small amount of other ingredients to season the grain, if any. Next would be the side-dish combinations of rice plus vegetables or beans. Third would be the richer, more complex main dishes which combine rice with meat or seafood, often with vegetables as well. And finally, sweet rices dishes and desserts, like the rice pudding featured yesterday on Flavors of Brazil.

Today's recipe for rice with crabmeat is a good example of the third category above - a mixture of rice, picked-over fresh crabmeat and a number of vegetables. It comes from the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhão and is just one of many recipes from that state that combine rice with the bounty of the sea.

This dish, and its many cousins, are similar to Spanish paellas with their combination of rice, seafood, bell peppers, tomatoes etc., but differ from paella in that the rice is pre-cooked separately and then combined with the other ingredients in the final stages of the preparation. In Spanish paellas the rice and other ingredients are all cooked at the same time over an open flame, resulting in a more risotto-like consistency.

Feel free to play around with recipes like this one - Brazilian cooks do. If you can't get your hands on crabmeat (or can't afford it when you find it) you can substitute all kinds of other seafoods - small shrimps, clams or mussels, rings of squid - all are perfectly acceptable substitutes.

This dish is rich and satisfying without being overwhelmingly so, and with a green salad makes a great light supper or weekend lunch.
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RECIPE - Rice with Crabmeat (Arroz de Caranguejo)
Serves 4

2 cups picked-over fresh crabmeat (can substitute equal quantity canned crab or any other seafood)
3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup finely-chopped onion
1/2 cup finely-diced red or green bell pepper (or a combination)
1/2 cup tomato, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
juice of one lime
salt to taste
4 cups cooked white rice (long-grain is best)
2 Tbsp finely-chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp finely-chopped green onion (green part only)
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Rinse the crabmeat or other seafood well in fresh running water. Drain and reserve.

In a large saucepan heat the oil over medium-high heat, then add the chopped onion, bell pepper and tomato. Cook for a few minutes or until the onion is softened and transparent, the peppers are softened and the tomato begins to break up. Reduce the heat to medium, then add the crabmeat and the lime juice. Cook for another minute or so, or until the crabmeat is heated through. Season for salt.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and stir in the rice, mixing well to combine all the ingredients. Cook, stirring constantly until the rice is hot. Remove from the heat, mix in the chopped cilantro and green onion and serve immediately in a decorative serving bowl or casserole.

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

RECIPE - Rice Pudding (Arroz Doce)

To kick off the recipe posts for Flavors of Brazil's Rice Week celebration, we thought it might be fun to start with the dessert course and work our way backwards. We've already published lots of rice recipes on the blog, but up to now they've all been for savory rice dishes. The use of sweetened rice as a dessert isn't unique to Brazilian cuisine of course - for example American and British cuisines are famous for their good old-fashioned boarding school rice puddings, which seem to be one of those dishes that people either love or hate, and in Thailand they make a wonderful dessert out of black rice cooked in coconut milk and served with cubes of fresh mango. Brazilian traditional cooking, particularly home cooking, has numerous variations on the basic dessert rice formula of rice, sugar, dairy and (optionally) eggs.

This recipe, simply named arroz doce or sweet rice is from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and is clearly part of the Portuguese heritage in Brazilian cuisine. Hallmarks are the presence of egg yolks and the high level of sweetness - these are common traits in Portuguese sweet-baking traditions and are found in most recipes inherited from convent-bakeries in the old country. The use of sweetened condensed milk marks it as a Brazilian recipe.
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RECIPE - Rice Pudding (Arroz Doce)
Serves 4

1 cup long-grain white rice
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp butter
1 quart (1 liter) milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
2 Tbsp granulated white sugar
grated peel of 1/2 lime
3 egg yolks
powdered cinnamon to taste
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In a thick-bottomed sauce pan, soak the rice in 2 cups cold water for 30 minutes. Add the salt and butter and heat over medium-low heat until the water just boils. Continue to cook the rice until enough water is absorbed to just reach the level of the rice in the pan.

Add the milk, the sweetened condensed milk, the sugar, the grated lime peel, and cinnamon to taste. Stir well to mix and continue to cook over low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the rice absorbs almost all of the milk and the mixture has a creamy consistency.

Place four serving spoonsful of rice in a medium bowl and add the yolk, one by one, mixing each in well before adding the next. Return this mixture to the pan and cook the dish for 10 more minutes.

Remove from heat, transfer the pudding to a serving bowl or dish and let cool completely. Once cooled, you can serve this immediately at room temperature, or cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it if you wish to serve it cold. If desired, you can sprinkle additional powdered cinnamon on the dish just before serving.

Brazil as a Rice-Producing Nation - Part 2

If Discovery Channel can have a Shark Week (about one out of every five weeks, it seems) then Flavors of Brazil can certainly have a Rice Week, which is what this week appears to be turning out to be here on the blog. Rice is such an essential and central part of Brazilian food culture that it deserves detailed coverage - and lots of recipes to showcase how many different ways rice is eaten in Brazil.

In the first part of this "rice saga", published yesterday, we detailed where Brazil fits in as part of worldwide rice cultivation and consumption patterns. There are places on Earth where the population consumes more rice than Brazilians do, and there are many more where the population consumes much less. On a per capita basis, Brazilians are right in the middle in terms of rice consumption. What makes the Brazilian rice market so large, however, is the sheer size of Brazil's population. Brazil is the fifth most-populous nation in the world, with the current estimated population of just over 194 million. It is outranked only by China, India, the United States and Indonesia in terms of population. So if you take the estimated per capita consumption of 45 kgs (100 lbs) and multiply that by 200 million you've got a lot of rice.

Irrigated rice field - Rio Grande do Sul

Where is most of this rice grown? Although rice requires warm weather and adequate water to grow, large portions of Brazil are not suitable for rice cultivation. Rice cannot be cultivated in the Amazonian rain forest which covers more than half of Brazilian territory. Because of agricultural suitability, historical patterns of habitation and present-day economics rice cultivation is concentrated today in two Brazilian regions. The most important region is Brazil's far south - the two southern-most states in the country, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, where about 54% of Brazil's rice comes from. The second region is in the state of Mato Grosso, in the the Center-West Region, where about 15% of the nation's rice is grown. The balance of the crop comes from a number of regions in the South-east and North-east of the country.

Non-irrigated rice field - Mato Grosso

The two main regions for cultivating rice use very different cultivating techniques to grow rice. In the South, rice is grown on older, well-established and irrigated lands. In the Center-West, by contrast, rice is grown on non-irrigated, newly-cleared land where rice is used to prepare the land for soy and cotton production. Rice production, therefore, is much more stable in the traditional rice-growing regions in the South, where rice has a long history of cultivation and farmers have a greater investment in growing rice specifically, because of the infrastructure required for irrigation.

Ecologists and environmentalists point out that the Southern rice crop is more sustainable than the crop from the Center-West. In the Center-West rice farmers need newly-cleared land for their crop, which means that deforestation is required. In the South, rice fields have long been established and there is no present-day deforestation occurring. Unfortunately, with the way rice is marketed in Brazil, it's virtually impossible to tell where the rice one buys in the supermarket comes from. Perhaps as consumers become more demanding in terms of food security and environmental impact some smart marketer might be able to sell sustainably grown rice, even at a premium. But the Brazilian market isn't yet at that point.

Of the total rice crop in Brazil 99% is long-grain rice and only 1% short-grain. Although whole-grain (brown) rice is available in most supermarkets, it's little seen in restaurants or in home cupboards and is consumed only by a very small percentage of the population. For nearly all Brazilians their daily rice is white and long-grain. Because the daily consumption of rice is such an integral part of Brazilian eating patterns, it will probably be some time before brown rice has wide acceptance.

Starting tomorrow,  Flavors of Brazil will continue its Rice Week with some typical Brazilian recipes for this grain.

Brazil as a Rice-Producing Nation - Part 1

Flavors of Brazil is full of recipes that include rice - not surprising at all, since most Brazilians eat the grain daily and have done so since Portuguese colonial times. Rice has a role in every regional cuisine in Brazil and is eaten across all the economic and social strata of Brazilian society - the maid in an industrial magnate's villa eats her own rice after serving it to her employer and his family, the middle-class working mother eats rice during her lunch break at work while her children eat it in a school lunch program and the urban poor who inhabit the slums of Brazil's big cities often eat it and nothing else besides beans for days at a time.

All added up, that's a lot of rice. Millions of tons of it every year. Recent statistics from UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ) tell an interesting story about the cultivation and consumption of rice in Brazil and around the world. Brazil is the ninth-largest rice producing nation in the world, and the largest producer outside the traditional West and East Asian "rice bowl", where 90% of the world's crop is planted. Brazil's total production in 2009-2010 was 10,198,900 metric tonnes which means it produced just under 2% of the world's rice crop. By way of comparison, China's crop, the world's largest, was 166,417,000 metric tonnes, accounting for 32.7% of the world's crop. Brazil is the only non-Asian country to feature in the top-ten list of rice producing countries. The amount of rice grown in the USA places it just outside the top-ten list.

These statistics show that Brazil is a significant producer of rice, but you have to look elsewhere, at statistics of per capita consumption, to get an idea of the importance of rice to the Brazilian diet. The data provided by UNCTAD divides the world into three rice consumption models, each with vastly differing numbers for per capita consumption. The first model is called  the Asian model, and in this group of countries typical annual consumption of rice, per capita, is over 80 kgs (or 175 lbs). In this group you find China with per capita consumption of 90 kgs (218 lbs), Indonesia with 150 kgs (330 lbs) and world-leader Myanmar with a staggering 200 kgs (440 lbs) annual per capita consumption. Brazil's per capita consumption is far lower, and the Brazilian model is called the Sub-tropical model by UNCTAD. Nations in this group are mostly Latin-American and African and annual consumption in the group is between 30 and 60 kilos. According to UNCTAD Brazilian consumption is 45 kgs (just about 100 lbs) annually per person, putting it in the mid-range of this group. Other examples of the Sub-tropical model are Colombia with annual consumption of 40 kgs (88 lbs) and the Ivory Coast with 60 kgs (132 lbs). The third UNCTAD model is called the Western model, and in this group annual per capita consumption is under 10 kgs (22 lbs) per year. In this group you find nations such as the USA, where people annually eat 9 kgs (20 lbs) and France, where only 4 kgs (9 lbs) of rice is consumed. The range between the models and between food cultures is colossal - residents of Myanmar, on average, eat 50 times as much rice as the French.

If you mathematically compare the size of the Brazil's annual rice crop with its annual consumption, it quickly becomes clear that Brazil doesn't produce enough rice to meet its domestic needs. About 10% of the rice consumed in Brazil every year is imported, mostly from other Latin American countries and from the USA. Today Uruguay and Argentina together supply about 85% of Brazil's imported rice. Brazil imports virtually no Asian rice, with the exception of specialty rices such as sushi rice from Japan. Although as recently as the 1980s Brazil as a rice-exporting nation, it is now firmly in the the rice-importing group of countries and accounts for 5% of total world imports.

In the next post onFlavors of Brazil, we'll look at Brazilian rice production - where it is produced, what types of cultivation models exist and what kind of rice in grown. Then we'll get back to the more culinary side of Brazilian rice, with a bunch of Brazilian recipes featuring the country's most important grain.

RECIPE - Rich Whore's Rice (Arroz de Puta Rica)

Italy has its slutty spaghetti (spaghetti alla puttanesca) and France has its lovely little pastry called pet de putain (We'll leave this one up to you to translate on your own or with Google translator), so why shouldn't Brazil have a recipe called Rich Whore's Rice? There's no reason why it shouldn't and in fact it does have exactly such a recipe.

A traditional dish from the interior state of Goiás, this combination of rice, smoked and preserved meats, olive and palm hearts supposedly got its name because it was the favorite dish of one of the most successful and richest madams in Goiás and of both the girls and the customers in the high-class brothel she ran. According to food historian Caloca Fernandes, though, the dish was probably a very simple plate of rice and sausage in its early days and was so basic and cheap that is was called Poor Whore's Rice. Only when better meats and extravagant vegetables were added did the poor whore in the title become a rich one.

This recipe, translated and adapted from Sr. Fernandes' book Viagem Gastronômico através do Brazil, makes a great one-dish meal - meat, rice, vegetables and seasonings all combined in one big pot. You know the expression "Dine like a king". Now you know how to dine like a rich whore, too.
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RECIPE - Rich Whore's Rice (Arroz de Puta Rica)
Serves 8

4 thick slices bacond, chopped
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 link Italian sausage, hot or sweet, crumbled
2 boneless chicken thighs, cubed
1 lb (500 gr) kielbasa or other garlic sausage, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups white rice
salt and pepper to taste
6 cups water
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels (thawed if frozen)
1 cup fresh or frozen peas (thawed if frozen)
1/2 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup chopped palm hearts
1/2 cup seedless raisins
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Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the bacon cubes and fry until crisp and browned. Add the fresh Italian sausage meat, the cubed chicken and stir-fry until all the meat is browned.

In a pan or kettle, bring the 6 cups water to the boil. Reserve, keeping at a slow boil.

Add the sliced garlic sausage and garlic. Fry briefly but don't let the garlic brown. Add the rice and fry until all the grains and coated with oil and are transparent. Add the boiling water, stir, add salt and pepper to taste. When the mixture returns to the boil, cover the pan and cook over low heat until the rice and meats are tender and the liquid is absorbed.

Add the corn and peas, and cook for another minute or so, or until they are heated through. Stir in the chopped olives, the palm hearts and raisins. Toss everything together and transfer to a deep serving bowl. Serve immediately.

What Do Brazilians Eat Most?

Recently, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Portuguese acronym - IBGE) published the results of a survey on the daily eating habits of Brazilians. Completely unsurprisingly, the survey revealed that the three most commonly consumed foodstuffs of Brazil are rice, beans and coffee. Anyone who has any knowledge of Brazilian eating habits would be likely to name the same three foods if asked to guess what Brazilians eat most.

Nonetheless, there were some interesting statistics in the publication many of which indicate wide variations in daily diet from region to region within the country. Because of huge distances, different climates and environments and varying agricultural practices, what a northern Brazilian from the Amazon eats is not the same as what a southerner from Santa Catarina or Rio Grande do Sul finds on their plate. The "big three", however - rice, beans and coffee - are consumed everywhere.

The average daily consumption of rice in Brazil is 182 grams (about .40 pounds). The consumption of beans is slightly less at 160 grams (about .35 pounds). These are washed down with nearly 220 ml (just under a cup) of coffee. Considering that Brazilian coffee is normally drunk in very small cups called cafezinhos, this works out to nearly seven cups of coffee per person per day. Brazil truly does run on caffeine.

Next in line in terms of favorite foods in Brazil are bread and beef.The most common type of bread in Brazil is a small French-style roll, and 63% of the population eats bread on any given day. The percentage who eat beef is just under half of the population (48%). The beef number seems astonishingly high, but Brazil is only 6th in the world in per capita beef consumption and Brazilians eat less than half as much beef as their neighbors the Argentinians and Uruguayans.

Some regional patterns that emerged from the survey show that inhabitants of Brazil's Central West region consume the most rice, beef and whole milk, while those who live in the populous Southeast (which includes the two largest cities in Brazil, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, eat more beans, more yogurt, and more potatoes than anywhere else in the country). It's not a surprise that those who live in the north, home of the gigantic Amazon River system, eat more fresh water fish than their compatriots elsewhere in Brazil as well as more açaí, one of the region's native fruits.

A native starch, manioc, in its many forms is much more consumed in the north and north-east than elsewhere. In those regions 40% of the population consumes manioc in some form daily, while in the south the equivalent number is less than 5%.

The overall picture drawn by the IBGE's survey shows a country that is united by its eating habits, but one that is also regionally divided by those same habits. Just as the foods of New England and California display varying regional preferences yet share some typical American eating habits, the pattern in Brazil shows the same unity and diversity. And the foods that link all Brazilians as they sit down to a meal are the bid three - rice, beans and coffee.

RECIPE - Chicken and Rice Soup (Canja)

Whether you're a confirmed believer or a total skeptic when in comes to the curative and restorative properties of chicken soup, this simple recipe for the Brazilian-Portuguese chicken and rice soup called canja will make you a confirmed believe as to its gastronomic qualities. It's absolutely delicious and utterly simple to make.

Since the main meal of the day in Brazil is a mid-day, supper or dinner is relatively light and uncomplicated. As the evenings are also cooler than daytime in Brazil's tropical heat, soup is served more often for dinner, and canja is an obvious favorite. Most Brazilian cities have many small restaurants that serve a variety of soups, with bread and butter, and nothing else. Most of these open about 5 pm and close between 9 and 10 pm. My favorite, a nameless joint located just 4 blocks from my home in Fortaleza, normally has from 5 to 7 different soups on offer, and one of these is always canja. A large serving of soup plus bread costs only R$5.00 or approximately USD $3.00. It's a reliable go-to spot for me when I've run out of food or culinary inspiration at home.

This canja recipe is typical, but absolutely not definitive. It can be altered at will, and as long as it contains at minimum chicken and rice, it can deservedly be called canja.
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RECIPE - Chicken and Rice Soup (Canja)
Serves 6

1 whole small chicken, preferably free-range
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium carrot, cut into small cubes
1 medium onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
3 quarts (3 liters) water
1 cup white rice
3 Tbsp. finely chopped Italian parsley
additional olive oil to taste
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Thoroughly wash the chicken, then cut it into serving size pieces. Season the pieces with salt and pepper. In a large saucepan or stockpot, heat the olive oil, then add the carrot, onion, and the garlic, and cook, stirring until the vegetables are softened and the onion is transparent but not browned. Add the chicken pieces and cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes, or until the chicken begins to brown slightly. Add the water, stir to mix all, then increase heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover the pan or pot and cook for about one hour, or until the chicken is well-cooked and tender. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

Remove the chicken from the soup, discard the skin and shred the meat. Reserve.

(If desired, the soup may be chilled at this point to solidify the fat for removal.)

Reheat the soup, return the shredded chicken to the pot, then add the rice. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat to low, cover and cook until the rice is tender but not falling apart, about 20 minutes. Add more water if necessary during cooking. Correct the seasoning with salt and pepper, then remove from heat.

Sprinkle the soup with chopped parsley, stir, then serve immediately.

Pass additional olive oil for drizzling if desired.

RECIPE - Salmon with Turmeric Rice (Salmão com Arroz de Açafrão-da-terra)

This recipe for salmon with "saffron of the earth" (aka turmeric) shows how Brazilian cooks have successfully adapted recipes featuring saffron by substituting turmeric for that incredibly expensive spice. (read more about this here) Rice is combined with true saffron in the foods of many cultures. Examples are Indian biryani, Persian pilau, and Italy's risotto milanese. Here the rice is colored and flavored with turmeric instead.

Salmon is a popular fish these days in Brazil, but since it's a cold-water species, it is not caught locally. The salmon that is available in Brazil is normally farmed salmon from Chile, where there's a large aquaculture industry. Having just returned myself from the west coast of Canada, where they were enjoying the best sockeye salmon catch in a hundred years, I find farmed salmon a somewhat palid  variation, but Brazilians do love it. I'm sure that this recipe would be marvelous with wild Atlantic or Pacific salmon.
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RECIPE - Salmon with Turmeric Rice (Salmão com Arroz de Açafrão-da-terra)
Serves 4

For the rice:
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cups long-grain white rice
2 cups water
1.5 cup light chicken stock
1/2 tsp. turmeric
salt to taste

For the salmon:
1 medium salmon fillet, cut into 4 serving pieces
1/3cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 Tbsp. Italian parsley, finely chopped
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Make the rice: in a heavy, medium saucepan heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and fry until translucent but not browned. Add the rice (and a bit more oil if necessary) and cook for 1 or 2 minutes, until the rice is coated with oil and becoming transparent. Add the water, chicken stock and turmeric, adjusting salt if necessary. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover the pan and cook for 20 minutes, undisturbed. Remove from heat and let stand, without uncovering, for 10 minutes. Reserve.

Make the salmon: Heat a heavy non-stick frying pan or grill pan over medium heat. Add 2 Tbsp. of the olive oil and cook the salmon, skin side down first, for about 5-7 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the fish. Meanwhile, in a medium pan heat the remaining olive oil, and saute the onion and garlic until the onion is transparent but not browned. Add the white wine ,whipping cream, tomato paste and 1 Tbsp. parsley. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce has cooked down and thickened, approximately 5 minutes.

To serve: Pool some sauce on a plate, top with a salmon fillet, then drizzle additional sauce over. Add a mound of rice to the side of the fish, then sprinkle the additional chopped parsley over all. Serve immediately