RECIPE - Grilled Zucchini Rolls with Buffalo Mozzarella (Rolinho de Abobrinha com mussarela de búfala)

These delicious rolls made from strips of grilled zucchini stuffed with fresh buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes can be served as canapes, as a salad or as an elegant first course. The recipe calls of mozzarella made from the buffalo milk, and in Brazil, this recipe is often made with cheese that comes from the island of Marajó, at the mouth of the Amazon. (Click here to read more about Marajó.) It can be made quite succesfully with any sort of fresh mozzarella (the kind sold floating in whey - often called bocconcini). Do not use aged mozzarella - the stuff you put on pizza. It's something entirely different and will not suit this recipe.
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RECIPE - Grilled Zucchini Rolls with Buffalo Mozzarella (Rolinho de Abobrinha com mussarela de búfala)
Makes 12 rolls

3 medium zucchinis
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium tomatoes, quartered and seeded
6 oz (200 gr) fresh buffalo mozzarella, cut into twelve equal-sized pieces
2 tsp fresh oregano leaves, finely minced
salt and pepper to taste
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Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Cut each zucchini lengthwise into six long strips - discard the two outside strips and reserve the four middle strips of each zucchini.

Heat a propane or charcoal grill to medium. Brush the zucchini strips with olive oil, then grill them for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the grill and reserve for 5 minutes to cool slightly.

Place each zucchini strip on a plate and put one tomato quarter and one mozzarella piece on top near one end. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle a bit of oregano on top and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Beginning at the end with the stuffing, roll up the zucchini strip and secure with a toothpick.

Put the zucchini rolls in a casserole or other baking dish lightly greased with olive oil. Bake for about 8 minutes until nice and hot. Serve immediately.

Marajó - Brazil's Island of Buffalos

The enormous island of Marajó sits at the mouth of the Amazon river system and is by all measures the largest riverine island in the world. Its 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers) make it larger than the country of Switzerland or the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the 35th largest island in the world - of any type. It sits almost directly on the Equator and is hot and humid all year round.

The only access to the island is by air or water - there is no land connection. From the nearest major city, Belém, it is a three-hour ferry ride to Marajó. Ferries dock at the island city of Soure. Even on the island most transportation is by boat along the coast - there are very few roads.

The major economic activity on the island is ranching and there are significant herds of cattle and buffalo. The estimated buffalo population of Marajó is 600,000 which is just about three times the human population. The buffalo raised on Marajó are not Noth American buffalos (they're actually not buffaloes at all; they're bisons), but rather Asian water buffalos. Marajó is very low and flat and during the rainy season much of the island is flooded - making water buffalos a perfect species to raise. Buffalos are happiest in hot, muggy climates and up to their necks in water so Marajó must seem like paradise to them.

Making buffalo mozzarella on Marajó

The animals are raised both for their meat and for their milk. The species of buffalo is the same one that is raised in the Campania region of Italy, where its milk is turned into the famous mozzarella di bufala, and Marajó has a significant cheese-making industry - one that is growing by leaps and bounds as the demand for buffalo mozzarella grows. Islanders have always preferred buffalo meat to cattle, but it's only recently that there has been any demand for buffalo meat in other regions of Brazil. As the beneficial nutritional profile of buffalo meat becomes more well known, particularly in relation to the profile of beef, demand for buffalo meat has grown tremendously in recent years. Marajó supplies nearly all that demand domestically in Brazil and there is an increasing market for export as well.

Traditionally-dressed vaqueiros (cowboys)

Another growing industry on Marajó is eco-tourism and several of the large buffalo ranches offer guest accommodation and activities. Visitors to these ranches have an opportunity to experience the life of the vaqueiros (cowboys) who manage the huge herds of buffalo and cattle and who have a unique and rich culture that dates back centuries. Some even offer guests the chance to ride a buffalo - something that local police do all the time (see the photo below). And of course, all visitors to the ranches can regale themselves with lots of local (very local) buffalo-meat dishes and cheeses.

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.

Cooks to the Rescue! Saving Traditional Paulista Cuisine

cuzcuz paulista

The megalopolis (plus or minus 19 million inhabitants) that is the city of São Paulo is a modern,  avant-garde city of tomorrow, both for good or for bad. Although the city has a long history, its look is ever forward, rarely backward - art, music, architecture all march relentlessly into the future, and referential art, which looks backward to earlier times, is not valued.

What is true for fine arts in São Paulo is also true for the art of cooking. Because of the long history of the city, and of the countryside in the state of São Paulo that nourishes it, there is a wealth of culinary tradition that stretches back almost 500 years. Yet in São Paulo it's the chef who is the most outré, the most daring and inventive who wins prizes and accolades. Molecular gastronomy and creative and unheard-of fusions rule with critics and diners alike. Traditional paulista (from São Paulo) cuisine is an endangered species in its home territory.

Jefferson Rueda

A few youngs chefs from São Paulo, however, are working feverishly to rescue traditional paulista cooking from obscurity before it disappears entirely. They are riding to the rescue of the imperiled maiden that is paulista cuisine and hope to raise its profile and protect its treasures by taste education, by publication and by presentation.

A recent article in the São Paulo newspaper Folha de S. Paulo details the work of these mostly younger chefs. Here is Flavors of Brazil's translation of the article:

The traditional cuisine of São Paulo is in decline. This beautifully simple, rustic cuisine, marked by the importance of corn, pork, and chicken.

And so have arisen a few daring young chefs - who make the humble origins of this paulista cuisine, which has been a source of shame, a source of pride - stubbornly searching for the roots of this cuisine, and resolved to make some noise in the city. Cooks like Jefferson Rueda and Ivan Achcar Eudes Assisi, who work to rescue the aromas that wafted through their childhood homes, in recipes that feature ingredients from the earth, the countryside, in a well-rounded new cuisine, using only traditional techniques.

In parallel with the cooks, on September 21st São Paulo City Councilman Juscelino Gadelha applied to have a traditional dish called virado paulista enshrined as part of the intangible patrimony of the city of São Paulo in the city's heritage list. The recipe is one of the iconic dishes of the style of cooking that first began to take shape (and still is formed) by the hands of Portuguese colonists and native Indians. Of the pioneers and cowboys. Of those who left what is now the city of São Paulo barefoot, armed with guns, and hammocks for sleeping, a few bringing along silver spoons, old books to entertain themselves, such as those described by pioneer Alcântara Machado. Of those on backcountry expeditions in the last quarter of the 17th century, searching the land for gold and Indians.

For food, these pioneers took little with them when they left the city. They made good use of the fish that swam the rivers, the berries and all the animals that they found in the brush. They were required by decree, according to food historian Caloca Fernandes, to "sow corn, beans and squash, easy to grow plants that will ensure a supply for new pioneers."

"In time this diet, rustic in character, became a permanent remembrance of the pioneer experience," says historian Antonio Candido. "And today there are elements of that adventurous spirit, which appear in the work of (chef) Eudes Assisi, for example."

Born and raised on the São Paulo coast, youngest of 14 children, chef Eudes, who once traveled the world cooking on cruise ships, now champions local ingredients such as the pupunha palm,  the wild lime and the taro-like taioba. 

"My coastal culture was being lost, no one was drying home-caught fish on a line, as my mother once did" says chef Eudes. But in the restaurant that Eudes will open in 2012, his plan is to showcase that genuine coastal cuisine of his childhood, a mixture of fish and bananas, sweet and salty. 

Similarly Jefferson Rueda, who now works in a prestigious European restaurant, will return to São Paulo in December and plans to open his own restaurant there in January. It will highlight the rustic gastronomy of the state's interior, which was first settled by Italian immigrants who came to work on coffee plantations. "Paulista cuisine has influences from other Brazilian states and other countries too," says Rueda. Chef Eudes in his Casa da Fazenda (Farmhouse) restaurant will simple pork loin, chicken with okra, virado paulista, thus sharing this idea of a "collective memory" cuisine.

"Do you know where I find comfort in São Paulo?", asks chef Eudes. "In classic paulista restaurants like Sujinho, in neighborhood botecos, in that little bar on the corner."


Jefferson Rueda agrees: "The rustic cuisine of the interior of  São Paulo is something beautiful. Everything resolves around the table."

Ivan Achcar Eudes Assisi

The work of these chefs is not something unique to them or to  São Paulo. Similar chefs are working around the world to ensure that culinary traditions that date back hundreds or thousands of years are not lost irretrievably. We should all give them a nice round of applause, and all the support they need.

RECIPE - Cashew-nut Brownies (Brownie com Castanha de Caju)

Although last week was a kind-of-official Rice Week here on the blog, we didn't intend to have this one turn out to be a Cashew Week, though it seems to be happening naturally. One post just leads to another, so we'll follow this thread for a while, though this recipe for brownies with cashew nuts will be the last post to mention the words cashew or caju this week, we promise.

Brownies are an American dessert that has taken Brazil by storm in the past few years. They're popping up on restaurant dessert menus everywhere and there are bakery/cake shop-style brownie shops in many Brazilian cities. Here in Fortaleza we have a shop called Empório Brownie which specializes in these squares of chocolate deliciousness.

This recipe, which comes from women's website mdemulher, substitutes cashew nuts for the standard walnuts, as in a classic brownie recipe. Otherwise, it's very true to the original recipe, and the results are an interesting tweak on the usual brownie. For those who love cashew nuts, and they are legion, it's just one more way to gild the lily that is a brownie. Do give it a try sometime.
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 RECIPE - Cashew-nut Brownies (Brownie com Castanha de Caju)
15 portions

1 1/3 cup butter
12 oz (360 gr) semi-sweet baking chocolate
6 whole eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/4 cup (270 gr) all-purpose flour
3 1/3 cup (600 gr) granulated white sugar
1 cup (150 gr) roasted, unsalted cashew nuts, coarsely chopped
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Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).

In a double-boiler, melt the butter and chocolate together. Stir to mix completely. Remove from heat, then stir in the beaten eggs, mixing completely. Reserve.

Combine the flour and sugar in a large mixing bowl, then stir in the butter/chocolate/egg mixture with a rubber spatula, a bit at a time. Stir in the chopped cashew-nuts, mixing carefully and completely.

Pour the batter into a buttered square 8" (20 cm) cake pan. Smooth out the surface with the spatula.

Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven. The brownies are done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the batter comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool completely in the pan. Cut into squares and serve.

New Ceará-specific Apple Logo

Considering the importance of the cashew fruit (caju) to the economy and gastronomy of the Brazilian state of Ceará, some local wags here in in Fortaleza, the state's capital, have suggested to Apple that they slightly modify their world-famous logo to salute the fruit.

They've even gone so far as to design the new logo to help Apple's design department along. Here's what they sent Apple:

How do you like it? Flavors of Brazil thinks it's great and we'd love to have that logo lighting up the back of our Apple laptop.

Bumper Crop This Year for Ceará's Cashew Fruits

The cashew fruit (caju in Portuguese) is the most important fruit crop in Flavors of Brazil's home state, Ceará. The weirdly shaped apple-with-a-nut-on-the-end yields not only the cashew nut, which is tremendously valuable for the export market, but also a fruitlike part, botanically known as a peduncle, which enjoys a gigantic domestic market as a source of juice and sweets.

The caju harvest of the past two years in Ceará was disappointingly small, mainly due to the lack of rainfall in the state during the rainy season from January to early May. But 2011 is a year of  La Niña, a worldwide weather phenomenon generated by cooler than average water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. In years influenced by  La Niña Ceará receives higher than normal rainfall - something that is good for the cashew crop. This year's rainy season extended well into the normally dry months of June and July and consequently the caju harvest benefitted tremendously.

The harvest is just starting now, but the state agricultural bureau is predicting a 2011 cashew harvest of 160 thousand tons. That's four times the size of last year's harvest which was damaged by insufficient rainfall. Because of the abundant rainfall, the bureau is also predicting that the quality of the crop will increase this year with most fruits having high sugar levels and low acidity.

The cashew-nut processing industry will also enjoy an upswing thanks to the excellent harvest. The bureau expects that the tonnage of processed cashew nuts in 2011 will be 187% higher than last year.

As the cashew crop is the largest source of income for the residents of 45 counties in the state, the economic benefit for the cashew-cultivation region is considerable. Although wholesale prices have not yet been established, we can hope that the consumer will also see some benefit of this cornucopia of cashews - higher quality and lower prices.