Jorge Amado and the food from Bahia

Aí está o prato fino, requintado, da melhor cozinha. Quem o fizer pode gabar-se com razão de ser cozinheira de mão cheia. Mas, se não tiver competência, é melhor não se meter, nem todo mundo nasce artista do fogão. (Era o prato predileto do Vadinho. Nunca mais em minha mesa o servirei. Seus dentes mordiam o siri-mole, seus lábios amarelos do dendê. Ai, nunca mais seu lábios, sua língua, nunca mais sua ardida boca de cebola crua!).

This is an excerpt from the book "Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos" from the Brazilian author, Jorge Amado. For those who appreciate Brazilian culture, this is a must-read book. Jorge Amado was a great storyteller. As a typical baiano, he was sensual and romantic and filled his books with the main dishes of Bahia and other regions from the northeast of Brazil: acarajé, carne-seca, farinha, moqueca, bolo de aipim, pamonha, canjica, and many dishes with dende oil. According to his daughter, Paloma Jorge Amado Costa, when you read the books from Jorge Amado, you learn that food is not only essential to feed your body but also your soul. According to her, food gives you pleasure through your vision, taste, smell, and most of all, it is possible to dream about food.


The book tells the story of Dona Flor, the owner of a culinary school, married to Vadinho, a guy that drinks, cheats and gambles a lot. One day, he finds his destiny: death. Dona Flor marries a more respectable man but for her surprise, one year after Vadinho's death, he returns as a ghost to spice things up. Since Dona Flor owns a culinary school, you find in this book some recipes from Bahia. In the excerpt above, after giving a recipe of "moqueca de siri-mole" (soft shell crab moqueca), Dona Flor says it is a fancy dish and the ones that can make it can be proud of themselves. She also says it was Vadinho's favorite dish. In a very sensual way, she remembers how he appreciated her dish and complains about the fact she will never feel his mouth again.

If you want to know the secrets of Dona Flor's cuisine, what happens when Vadinho comes back to her life and how is the baiano's life style, order this book at Livraria Cultura. Don't be sad, if you cannot read in Portuguese and are curious about the story of Dona Flor and the two men of her life, you can find "Dona Flor and her two husbands" at Amazon.

While you don't have the book in your hands, what about making a "moqueca" with "farofa de dende"? I already posted my recipe of "moqueca" here. So now, get ready for this delicious Brazilian dish: "farofa de dende". Dende oil is a red palm tree oil that is not easy to find in regular supermarkets. But you can find it in some Latin stores, especially the Brazilian ones. You might find dende oil also in African stores but the African dende oil is much stronger than the Brazilian one. For those that are not used to dende oil, I recommend the Brazilian one.

Now that you know what dende oil means, check the recipe for farofa de dende!

Farofa de Dende

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup dende oil
• 2 cups manioc flour
  
• 1 large onion, minced
  
• 15 dried shrimps
  
• salt

How to prepare:

1. Soak the dried shrimp in warm water to cover for 15 minutes. Drain and process in a blender or food processor until reduced to small pieces.
   
2. Heat the dende oil in a large skillet over a medium heat.
   
3. Sauté the onion until it is golden.
4. Add the manioc flour and the shrimps, stirring with a wood spoon, to coat completely. Add salt, to taste.
5. Sauté the farofa for 5 minutes until toasted, stirring constantly not to burn.

Tip: Dried shrimp can be found in Asian supermarkets. If you can't find it, you can make the farofa without it. It will still be a delicious side dish for moqueca and other fish and seafood dishes!

Bom apetite!

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Images:
Book: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Source: http://www.livrariacultura.com.br/scripts/cultura/resenha/resenha.asp?nitem=1782964)
Farofa de dendê - Picture taken by Cynthia Santos

Moqueca

The word "moqueca" originates from the Tupi word "moquém", which was a system used by the native Brazilians to cook potatoes and different kinds of meats, especially fish. They wrapped the fish in leaves, put it in a grid made of sticks and grilled it on fire. With time, people stopped grilling the fish on fire and started using the stove. Through the years, moqueca has received contributions from the Portuguese (olive oil) and Africans (dende oil and coconut milk) and has become a typical Brazilian dish.

Nowadays, we have many different kinds of moquecas, depending on the meat used: fish, oyster, crab, shrimp, lobster, ray, etc. The moqueca from Espírito Santo State, called "moqueca capixaba" is different from the moqueca from Bahia State, known as "moqueca baiana". While the latter has dende oil and coconut milk, the first lacks those ingredients and has urucum seeds instead.

I am going to give you here my recipe of "moqueca baiana" made with fish:

Moqueca de Peixe (Fish Moqueca)

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds fish (any white fleshed fish like red snapper, grouper or red fish)
  
• 1 lime
  
• 1 small tomato roughly chopped, 2 medium tomatoes sliced into thin rounds
  
• 2 bell peppers (1 green and 1 red) sliced into thin rounds
  
• 4 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  
• 1 small onion roughly chopped, 1 large onion sliced into thin rounds
  
• 2 garlic cloves
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup dende oil
• 1 cup coconut milk
• pickled jalapeños thinly chopped, to your taste
• 2 teaspoons salt

How to prepare:

1. Cut the fish into 2-inch pieces.
   
2. Combine 1 small tomato, 1 small onion, 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 garlic cloves in a food processor and process until pieces are very small. Mix it with juice of 1 lime.
   
3. Cover both sides of the fish with this mixture and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
4. Use the half of the bell peppers, tomatoes and onions cut into round slices and half of the remaining cilantro to make layers on top of each other in a large saute pan.
5. Cover those layers with the fish and the marinade.
6. Make other layers with the remaining bell peppers, tomatoes, onions and cilantro to cover the fish. Add the jalapeños (I use 1 teaspoon for mild flavor).
   
7. Drizzle everything with olive oil and dende oil. Add coconut milk and 1 teaspoon of salt, stir, cover with a lid and cook over low heat, until the flesh starts to flake, about 20 minutes.
   

Serve this dish with white rice and "farofa de dendê" - soon to be posted here.
Serves 4-6 people.

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Image:
Moqueca, white rice and farofa de dendê - Picture taken by Cynthia Santos