RECIPE - Brazilian Liver and Onions (Iscas com Elas)

This poetically named dish (click here to read more about its Portuguese name iscas com elas) has been on the menu of Rio de Janeiro's À Lisboeta restaurant for 80-plus years, and there's no sign its coming off the menu soon. It continues to be one of the restaurant's most-requested dishes.

À Lisboeta is famed in Rio for its Portuguese cuisine, and this dish clearly points to Portuguese origins. Of all the regions of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro has, in culinary terms at least, the closest links to the motherland - to Portugal. Historically it stands to reason, as during a significant part of the 19th century Rio de Janeiro, not Lisbon as you might think, was the capital of the Portuguese Empire. When Portugal was invaded by Napoleon's troops in 1808, the entire Portuguese court from the Emperor on down fled Lisbon and sailed away to Rio de Janeiro, from where they ruled what portions of the Portuguese empire that remained loyal. Many ordinary Portuguese followed their rulers, and even today Rio de Janeiro has a much higher percentage of its population claiming Portuguese ancestry than other regions of Brazil do.

Liver and onions is one of those love-it-or-hate-it dishes. Those in the love-it camp are fervent in their adoration, and those in the opposing camp often claim not to be able to abide even the smell of the dish. This recipe, therefore, is strictly for those who already know they love liver and onions and who want to make it the way they do in Rio. If you can't abide liver in onions in any language, don't try iscas com elas.
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RECIPE - Brazilian Liver and Onions (Iscas com Elas)
Serves 6

2 lbs (1 kg) beef liver, sliced thin
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
salt and pepper to taste
4 large white onions
1/2 cup extravirgin olive oil
1 cup pitted Kalamata or other black olives
1 cup cherry tomatoes,  washed
2 Tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped
extra olive oil for drizzling
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Thoroughly wash the liver, then remove any membranes, fat or nerves. Cut the liver slices into thin strips, then place them into a mixing bowl. Add the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste, mix completely and let stand for 30 minutes.

Slice the onions into thin rings. Place them in another mixing bowl, separating the rings. Cover with cold water and let stand for about 10 minutes. Drain the onion rings completely, then dry them with paper towels. Reserve.

Heat a large frying pan, then add 1/4 cup of the olive oil. When it is hot but not smoking add the onion rings and fry, stirring frequently, until the rings are nicely golden. Remove the onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels. Reserve, keeping warm.

Add the remaining oil to the same frying pan. While it heats, remove the liver strips from their soaking water, reserving the water. Fry the liver in the hot oil just until the strips are browned - do not overcook. When the liver is done, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towels and reserve, keeping warm.

Add the soaking liquid to the pan, add the olives and cherry tomatoes, then raise the heat and bring rapidly to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes, until the liquid has reduced by half. Remove from the heat, stir the liver back in and reserve.

Serve on a large lettuce-lined platter. Alternate layers of liver and onions, then pour the sauce over all. Drizzle olive oil over all and serve accompanied by white rice or boiled potatoes.

Iscas com Elas - Brazilian Diner Lingo

Adam and Eve on a raft

According to Wikipedia, diner lingo is a uniquely American verbal slang used by waitresses and cooks in hashouses and truck stops to communicate with each other. Wikipedia says diner lingo "is virtually unknown outside the US." Some wonderful examples of diner lingo can be found on the Wikipedia page devoted to the subject and on a website called dinerlingo.com - phrases like "looseners" for prunes, "English winter" for iced tea, "side of Joan of Arc" for french fried, and our personal favorite, "Adam and Eve on a raft" for two poached eggs on toast.

Though the USA might be the only English-speaking country to speak diner lingo, inventive names for restaurant dishes don't only exist there - Rio de Janeiro's restaurants are famous for their own version of diner lingo. You might call it " gíria da lanchonete." One of the most famous and most wide used examples in Brazil is a dish called "iscas com elas". It's difficult to translate into English, but the idea is something like "the bait and the girls."

Iscas com elas is basically liver and onions, a diner and luncheonette specialty both in Brazil and the USA. In this case, the liver is cut into thin strips before frying (the bait) and served with fried rings of onion (the girls). The dish, and its name, originated in Rio de Janeiro's 80-year-old À Lisboeta restaurant, where it's been on the menu since the day the restaurant opened. Located in Rio's central business district, À Lisboeta is packed every lunch hour with bankers, accountants, bureaucrats, blue-collar and office workers, all wanting a substantial, satisfying lunch - and many of those end up ordering iscas com elas. It's one of the most popular dishes on the menu, even after all these years.

Iscas com elas

À Lisboeta doesn't just serve plain old iscas com elas, though. For those who are really hungry, there's a  more substantial version called iscas com elas and elas or "the bait and the girls and the girls," which means that the plate not only includes the strips of liver (the bait) and the fried onion rings (the girls), but also boiled potatoes (the other girls).

Next post, we'll publish À Lisboeta's recipe for iscas com elas.

RECIPE - "Rotten" Cake (Bolo Podre)

Some names for recipes just plain have it wrong. Welsh rabbit, for example - there's not a long-eared, floppy-tailed little bunny within miles. Canadian beaver tails? They're nothing but a flattened wad of dough, fried, then dusted with sugar. And Buffalo wings? Next time you see a bison flying overhead, let me know (We know this dish is named after the city, not the animal, but you get the idea). As for spotted dick, we're not even going to go there.

We'd like to add this recipe to the list of misnamed dishes, as there's absolutely nothing rotten about it - neither its state of preservation nor its flavor. Plus, it's not really a cake either. It's cool, creamy, and absolutely delicious. That's all you need to know. (You can read more about bolo podre here).

This recipe is for bolo podre as it's served in the city of Belém, in Brazil's Amazonian rain forest. In other regions of Brazil and in Portugal, the same name is used for entirely different cakes, so if you've reached here by Googling bolo podre, make sure this is what you want before you cook it.
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RECIPE - "Rotten" Cake (Bolo Podre)
makes 1 large cake

1 cup granulated white sugar
2 lbs grated coconut meat - packaged unsweetened or fresh
1 2/3 cup pearl tapioca
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 cups whole milk
3 cups coconut milk, commercial or homemade
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Mix together the white sugar, the whole milk and the coconut milk, and stir briskly until the sugar is completely dissolved. Reserve.

Sprinkle the tapioca over the mixture and let it hydrate completely. Stir in the grated coconut. Mix completely.

Fill a rectangular or tube-shaped cake pan with the mixture, packing it down to eliminate air bubbles. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Unmold the cake onto a serving platter, sprinkle additional grated coconut over if desired, and serve cold.

"Rotten Cake" - A Terrible Name for a Terrific Dish

When Flavors of Brazil was in Belém, Pará recently, one of the best things about our hotel's marvelous breakfast buffet was something with the very unappetizing name bolo podre. The name means "rotten cake" in Portuguese but fortunately the dish was far from rotten, and not all that close to what we'd call a cake. Serving cake for breakfast might itself seem a strange practice to some people, but there's nothing unusual about it in Brazil. Hotel or resort buffet breakfasts always have a selection of cakes from which to choose, and even at home there might be a some slices of unfrosted caked on offer for the family.

We tried bolo podre the first morning we were at the hotel, mostly out of curiousity's sake and just because the name was so weird. It turned out to be absolutely wonderful, and by the time we left the hotel a few days later the dining room staff would greet us each morning saying "bolo podre" with a knowing smile.

The bolo podre we ate in Belém was more of what we'd call a pudding than a cake. In fact, we'd call it tapioca pudding. Bolo podre, as it's eaten in Belém, consists of small pearls of manioc flour (what's sold in North America as tapioca) combined with grated fresh coconut, coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, milk and sugar. The mixture is pressed into a tube-shaped cake pan and then refrigerated until the manioc flour has absorbed enough of the liquid that the "cake" can be unmolded and cut into slices for serving. The result is creamy, sweet and rich, much like rice pudding, with the unmistakeable flavor of coconut.

In preparing for this blog post, we did some Internet research on bolo podre, and it turns out that although the name itself is a heritage of Portuguese culinary traditions, the dish itself doesn't resemble its Portuguese namesake at all. Traditional Portuguese bolo podre is a rich spice cake, sweetened with honey and moistened with generous amounts of vegetable oil and 8 whole eggs! It is spiced and flavored with powdered cinnamon.

The connection between the Portuguese spice cake and the Amazonian tapioca cake-that's-not-a-cake is a mystery. But for us, an even greater mystery is why either one of these treats would be burdened with the utterly unappealing name "rotten cake."

RECIPE - Barreado

If you are planning to make this traditional dish from Brazil's southern state of Paraná, (read more about barreado here) you're going to need two specific things that might not be already hanging around in your pantry. First, the dish must be cooked in a large clay pot with a lid - the type of pot that's often referred to as a bean pot. Bostonians use them for cooking baked beans, as do Quebecers, so if you're in either of those categories you just might have one in the house. If not, you'll have to beg, borrow or steal one, as the dish really can't be made in any other pot or pan.

Second, you'll need to find manioc flour to make the thick dough that seals the pot. Not being able to source manioc flour doesn't mean that you can't make barreado however, just that it won't be completely authentic. You can make the same sort of dough with wheat flour and water. Manioc flour is also used to thicken the broth in a traditional barreado, but again you can substitute flour, although the result won't taste exactly the same.

One of the nice things about making barreado is that all the cooking can be done long before the dish is served. In fact, the dish tastes better this way. So when you want to do your cooking the day before you serve a meal, barreado is an excellent option.

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RECIPE - Barreado
Serves 4

6 lbs beef shank, cut into long strips in the direction of the grain
salt to taste
1 lb lean smoked slab bacon, cut into julienne strips
5 medium onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
3 bay leaves
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp ground cumin
2 to 3 cups manioc flour, mixed with a little water to make a thick dough

For the pirão
cooking liquid from the barreado
1 cup manioc flour

sliced ripe banana to garnish
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Season the beef with salt to taste (remember the dish will contain bacon, so season lightly). Reserve.

In a large saucepan, fry the bacon strips until they have rendered their fat and are beginning to brown. Add the chopped onion and garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Then add the beef, the bay leaf, the oregano and cumin and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the meat has browned.

Put everything from the saucepan into a large clay bean pot, then add sufficient water to cover. Reserve.

Make a thick dough with the manioc flour and water, and roll it with your hands into a long thick "rope." Cover the bean pot, then firmly press the rope around the rim of the lid to seal the pot entirely. Cook the dish over lowest flame or electrical burner for 6 hours. If steam begins to escape from the pot, use additional manioc flour dough to patch the holes, making sure the pot stays sealed for the entire cooking process. Let the pot cool completely, then break the seal to open the pot. (Be careful when opening as there might still be steam in the pot.)

Remove the beef from the pot, leaving the cooking liquid in the pot. When the beef is cool enough to handle, shred the beef with two forks.

Pour the cooking liquid into a clean saucepan. Heat over medium heat and when the liquid is hot, sprinkle manioc flour, by the small handful, over the surface then mix in. Continue to add manioc flour slowly until the mixture thickens to the consistency of gravy.

Reheat the shredded beef if necessary, then place some in the bottom of 4 deep soup plates. Pour some  pirão over - enough to moisten the beef and provide a bit of gravy, but not enough to drown the meat. Garnish with slices of ripe banana and serve with plain white rice.


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

Happy National Coffee Day, Brazil!

Flavors of Brazil almost missed Brazil's National Coffee Day, being celebrated today, May 24. And what a celebration it must be, as it appears that Brazilians are the world's champion coffee drinkers. We would have guessed that title would have gone to the USA, where coffee is served in bottomless cups in Interstate truck stops and where urbanites daren't walk the streets without a Venti in their hands. But no, according to Brazil's National Coffee Producers Association, Brazilians drink more coffe per person than citizens of any other country - the total is a whopping 82 liters (about 82 quarts) per person per year. (Note that other sources dispute these numbers, so they can't be taken as gospel.)

Considering the fact that Brazilians don't drink coffee in large cups, the number of cups of coffee served annually in Brazil must be astronomical. Brazilian coffee is served in a standard coffee cup at breakfast and in tiny, tiny plastic cups (for a drink called cafezinho) throughout the day.

There's a lot of talk in the media these days about Brazil's current rise to the top level of the world's energy producers. What a lot of people must not realize is that the energy they're talking about is caffeine!

Incidentally, Brazil isn't just the champion in coffee drinking. It's also the world's largest coffee-producing country - by a long shot. According to Bloomberg, for the 2010-2011 season, Brazil produced 54,500,000 million bags of coffee. At 60 kg/132 lb per bag, that's about 3.5 million tons. The second largest coffee-producing nation, Vietnam, produced only about a third as much.

So tip your coffee cup and raise a toast to coffee-loving Brazilians.

Barreado - Paraná's Iconic Claypot-cooked Beef

A sealed barreado pot

We've been talking a lot recently at Flavors of Brazil about pressure cookers, and how they are a common feature of contemporary Brazilian home kitchens. It turns out, though, that the tradition of using pressure and steam vapor to cook and tenderize tour cuts of meat in Brazil predates the invention of the pressure cooker itself.

In the southern Brazilian state of Paraná there is a well-known traditional dish called barreado that uses a hermetically-sealed clay pot to achieve the same results that a pressure cooker does. There are various theories about who created the dish and when, some saying it was native Amerindian tribes and other attributing the dish to tropeiros, colonial donkey-caravan traders. What is not in doubt, though, is that the technique is very old.

Barreado is basically a meat stew thickened with manioc flour and served with slices of banana. Barreado must be cooked in a clay pot for a long period of time over low heat - preferably the coals of a wood fire. To seal the pot, cooks first make a thick paste of manioc flour and water and then apply that seal to the edges of the pot's lid to ensure that vapor cannot escape. The seal is renewed as needed during the long cooking period, which can be as long as 12 hours. Some 19th Century recipes call for barreado to be cooked for at least 24 hours, though there is probably very little reason to extend the cooking time that long.

Because of the long cooking time in a moist environment even the toughest cuts of meats are rendered fall-off-the-bone tender. To serve barreado, the meat is lifted from its broth and is shredded, while the broth itself is thickened with manioc flour to create a thickened sauce called a pirão. The meat is served on a bed of pirão and is garnished with banana slices. Cachaça is the drink of choice when eating barreado.

Barreado is associated with the coastal region of Paraná, particularly the small community of Morretes located in the state's litoral. On weekends thousands of tourist from the state's capital, Curitiba, and from further afield swamp the small town of only 15,000 residents and fill its restaurants in search of a plate of barreado. For many of them it's a reacquaintance with a treasured dish from their past, for others it's a new experience that connects them to the culinary history of Paraná.

Next time round, we'll post a recipe for make-at-home barreado.