How To Season a Clay Cooking Pot

Cooking in an unglazed ceramic cooking pot is a time-honored and marvelous way to create soups, stews, grain and legume dishes, and braised-meat dishes. The thermic properties of clay, which allows for cooking a dish at low temperature over a long period of time, unattended, makes cooking in clay ideal for the cook that wants to assemble a dish then basically let it cook itself, leaving the cook free for other activities. Think of cooking in clay as the origin of the slow cooker - it only lacks electricity.

Before using a clay pot for the first time it is essential to season it. Because the clay is unglazed and therefore somewhat porous, the earthy taste of the clay itself will leach into the food if the pot is unseasoned. Once seasoned, however, you can use a clay pot without fear of the taste of clay spoiling your dish.

Seasoning a clay pot

This technique for seasoning an unglazed clay pot is adapted from from Brazilian food writer and blogger Neide Rigo and can be found on her blog Come-Se. Her seasoning process is a two-day process and begins with a twenty-four hour soaking of the pot in cold water. One the second day, she removes the pot from the water, drains it completely then fills it half-full with fresh water. She fills the pot with chunks of pork belly with its rind in the water and heats the pot slowly over low heat. She lets the water come to the boil and then continues the cooking until the water evaporates completely and the pork belly begins to fry. She continues to fry the pork belly using a silicone brush to paint the entire interior of the pot with melted fat until the pork skin becomes crispy  - fried pork rind (torresmo in Portuguese). At this point, she removes the pot from the heat, allows it to cool completely, drains it completely, wipes the interior dry, then washes the pot in hot water only. Once the pot is completely dry it's ready for its first use. (Added bonus - the pork rind, or cracklings, are delicious!)

Clay pots should be cleaned with water only - detergents can have an effect on the taste of food cooked in clay. Use hot water and if needed a plastic scouring pad to clean. It's also important to dry the pot quickly after washing to avoid musty flavors developing. In Brazil, cooks just put the pot in direct sunlight. In less tropical climes, fifteen minutes in a 150F oven will do the trick.

UTENSILS OF BRAZIL - Clay Pot (Panela de Barro)

When proto-Brazilians first learned that many foodstuffs were improved, or even simply made edible, by the application of heat, they basically used two ways to apply that heat. In the rain forests of the Amazon basin and the coastal mountains, on the savannahs of western and central Brazil and on the beaches of the the country's immense coastline, Amerindians cooked their food either by direct exposure to fire (grilling, basically) or by indirect exposure. Indirect exposure involved placing the food in some sort of fired clay container and heating the food in liquid inside the pot or pan. Even the most primitive tribes of Amerindians seem to have known the technique of firing clay to make ceramic products and to have learned that once fired, ceramics can be exposed to high levels of heat without damage. Metals were unknown to these tribes, and wood was unsuitable in the presence of fire, so without clay pots they would only have been able to grill food.

Grilling is a technique that is well suited to most meats and seafood, plus some types of vegetables. However, it is less well suited to cooking roots and tubers and other types of vegetables that constitute the basic staple foods of most cultures. In pre-Colombian South America these staples included manioc, potatoes and corn. The most common way for Amerindians to cook them was in clay pots. African slaves also brought with them their own traditions of cooking in clay when they came to Brazil.

Today there is a resurgence in the use of clay cooking pots in Brazilian cooking, even though in rural areas of the country it had never really gone out of style. In the cities of Brazil, in the kitchens of fine restaurants and in the homes of dedicated amateur cooks, there has been a rediscovery of clay cooking utensils. There is something about the way that clay transmits and retains heat that really cannot be duplicated in metal or glass - particularly in relation to heat retention. For dishes that require long cooking at low temperatures, there is nothing better than clay. This rediscovery of clay cooking utensils really is just one more case of "everything old is new again." Today in Brazil, there is nothing more ancient or more avant-garde than cooking in clay.

To buy clay pots and pans in most Brazilian cities, all one needs to do is visit the nearest market in which artisanally produced material can be purchased. There you can find pots of all sizes from miniature to mammoth and in a myriad of shapes and forms. Some are beautifully decorated with incized designs and decorative handles, others are purely utilitarian. But they all work equally well. It's also possible to buy clay pots online in Brazil for those who don't live near a market that sells them.

Clay pots need to be seasoned prior to first use, but once seasoned, they can last a lifetime if properly handled. In the next post here on Flavors of Brazil we'll teach you how to season an unglazed clay pot Brazilian-style, and then we'll highlight some Brazilian recipes which are best cooked in clay.

UTENSILS - The Pressure Cooker (Panela de Pressão)

Although pressure cookers - pans with airtight lids that allow steam pressure to build up inside the pan and consequently allow cooking at temperatures higher than the normal boiling point - we invented back in the 19th Century and had their heyday in the decades following the Second World War, in most parts of North America and Europe they have fallen by the wayside. Children born in the 1970s and 1980s are now reaching adulthood without ever having seen a pressure cooker. In modern American kitchens, pressure cookers are as scarce as the proverbial hens' teeth.

In Brazilian kitchens, however, pressure cookers, once they became popular never disappeared. A pressure cooker (called panela de pressão in Portuguese) can be found in most Brazilian kitchen cupboards or pantries and Brazilian home cooks often use a pressure cooker on an almost-daily basis. Brazilian cooks use pressure cookers to make the beans without which a Brazilian meat isn't complete. They also use them to make meat and poultry stews, relying on the pan's high temperature to tenderize tough meats. And they use them to cook the salted, dried meats, like carne de sol and charque, which are an integral part of Brazilian cuisine.

The ability to tendersize tough cuts of meat is just one of the virtues of the pressure cooker that make it a valuable part of a Brazilian cook's batterie de cuisine. Because it generates such high temperatures, pressure cookers allow for a much shorter cooking time for things like dried beans, which can take hours when cooked in a normal pan. This shorter cooking time benefits Brazilian cooks in two ways - first, because it allows them to do the daily cooking faster, saving time for other chores, and second, because the shorter cooking time means significantly less energy is required, whether the cook is using a wood stove, a gas stove or an electric one. This last reason is probably the most important reason why the pressure cooker has stayed popular in Brazil, as many houses rely on their own resources of wood or on bottled butane gas for cooking purposes. Only in the large cities, and then only in the better neighborhoods, can centralized gas be found. When fuel is limited, and for many Brazilians, expensive, a pressure cooker makes a lot of sense.

Brazilian cookbooks are full of recipes that require pressue cookers. To date, Flavors of Brazil hasn't published any, as most readers of this blog aren't likely to have one at home. But as we here at Flavors of Brazil have taken the plunge and bought a pressure cooker, we'll publish such recipes from time to time in the future. Pressure cookers are still available in North America and Europe and they do make good economic sense, as well as providing an excellent method of cooking. Newer models have many safety features, too, which eliminates some people's worries about cooking with potentially explosive steam. Who knows, in this world of increasing energy costs, maybe the pressure cooker is due for a comeback.

On the Road - Maranhão (Pt. 10) - Caldeirada Maranhense

In almost every coastal region of Brazil (and with over 4650 miles, or 7500 kilometers, or coastline there are a lot of coastal regions in this country) there is a traditional dish consisting of a variety of fish and/or seafood served in a spicy, soupy sauce. In the state of Bahia this dish is usually called moqueca and is highlighted by the presence of dendê palm oil in the sauce. The neighboring state of Espírito Santo is also famous for moquecas, but theirs don't include dendê. In Flavor of Brazil's home state of Ceará it's known as peixada, and in Maranhão the locals call their variation caldeirada, which has the same linguistic roots as our English word chowder.

Antigamente

During our recent visit to São Luís, Maranhão, we sampled a caldeirada Maranhense during a dinner in a charming restaurant called Antigamente, located on one of the principal squares of the historical district. Housed in a centuries-old two-story building that was once a home, the restaurant is located at street level, and at night literally spills out into the square with tables and chair covering the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and out onto the cobblestoned street in this pedestrian-only zone.  Owned by self-taught local chef Ana Lula, who started her career with a hot-dog cart on the same square where Antigamente sits, this restaurant has been open for more than 20 years and is one of the established stars of the São Luís food scene.

Antigamente's caldeirada is a rich, heady mixture of fish and shellfish and generously feeds two people. The sauce is tomato-based and is enriched with coconut milk. In addition to the seafood, the caldeirada included whole hard-boiled eggs (peeled) and chunks of potatoes. The stew is cooked, in traditional style, in a large unglazed-ceramic bowl, and brought to the table in the same bowl. It is served with plain white rice and pirão, which is an extra portion of the sauce thickened with manioc flour.

The dish was absolutely delicious and brimming full of seafood. When we ordered the dish our waitress had confirmed that one serving would be enough for two, but she was wrong - it would have easily sufficed for three or perhaps four persons. As wonderful as it was we were unable to finish it and had to leave a disconcerting amount of caldeirada in the bowl, even though we'd eaten sparingly of the rice and pirão.

Our next post here will feature a typical recipe for caldeirada maranhense. It's not Antigamente's recipe which is a proprietary secret of Ana Lula's, but I would guess that it's very similar.

UTENSILS - Clay cookware from Goabeiras

The Goabeiras neighborhood of Vítoria, the capital of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, is home to a tradtional style of production of unglazed ceramic cookware, known in Portuguese as "Paneleiras de Goiabeiras." In small workshops and factories, artisans create beautiful, yet utilitarian, cookware using techniques originated by Brazil's Indian population long before the European colonization of Brazil began in 1500. Unglazed bowls, platters, plates and cups are molded by hand, without the use of a wheel, using clay which comes from the nearby Vale do Mulembá. Once formed, the greenware is left to dry in the direct sun, and then fired over open fires rather than in a kiln. After firing, the pieces of cookware are impregnated with tannin, which protects and seals the unglazed ceramics, and which provides the lustrous black finish characteristic of "Goiabeiras" ware. The finished product can be used as a cooking vessel, or as serving ware.

The video below from YouTube shows the entire process of production, and was made by the local ceramics cooperative. Traditionally, Goiabeiras ware was made by women at home, but now both men and women make the bowls and plates, and production is in small workshops supported by the cooperative.



In earlier posts I discussed how certain traditional and artisanal techniques have been recognized by IPHAN, Brazil's National Institution of Historical and Artistic Patrimony as "immaterial national treasures." The traditional practice of selling acarajé on the streets of Salvador was covered in this post. IPHAN  bestowed the same recognition as "national treasure" to the clayware of Goiabeiras in 2002 to ensure that this technique and style which dates back well over a thousand years is protected and preserved, and to honor those who carry on the traditions that their ancestors have passed on from generation to generation.

UTENSILS - Soapstone cookware

One of the softest minerals found on Earth, steatite is commonly called soapstone. Because it has a high proportion of talc, steatite often feels "soapy" to the touch, and it is this property which has given it its common name. In Brazil, this stone is known as pedra-sabão which can be exactly translated as soapstone. Steatite is common in the historic mining districts of Minas Gerais state where in the 17th and 18th centuries large amounts of gold and precious stones were mined.

Soapstone is especially common in the hills surrounding Ouro Preto, a beautifully preserved city that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the 18th century, stone carvers in Ouro Preto began to use soapstone as a medium for sculpture because it was so easily carved. They also used the same mineral to create useful household objects, in particular for the kitchen. Soapstone pots and pans were first created in Ouro Preto at that time, and in Minas Gerais they are still used in traditional and in modern kitchens.

When soapstone cooking utensils first came into use, cooks quickly discovered that they had one important advantage over metal or clay pots - the stone retains heat much longer than other materials do, and thus soapstone utensils are perfect for stews, for beans, or for soups - anything which is slow-cooked and which benefits from long exposure to low heat.

Soapstone pots and pans can still be found in stores in Ouro Preto and throughout Minas Gerais, and are surprisingly inexpensive considering their utility, durability and beauty. A good soapstone pan will last a lifetime. The only problem with these objects is that they are heavy and somewhat fragile - so taking one home as a souvenir of Minas Gerais is not necessarily an easy thing to do! But if you persevere, you will find a soapstone pan or pot will quickly gain an important place in your kitchen and will be an evocative souvenir of the three-century-old cooking traditions of the baroque mining towns of Minas Gerais.