Thrill from Brazil

I am deeply indebted to the early hominids. Why, you might ask? Well, aside from their discovery of tools, writing and the internet (yes, Al Gore is human, despite any indications to the contrary), they came up with the brilliant idea of the pot luck, gatherings where each family group brings a food item to share.

At a recent gathering of hominids in our back yard, my friend Judy, who lived in Brazil while her husband taught at a university there, brought a Brazilian dish from Sao Paulo called, naturally, Cuscuz Paulista. A savory dish made with cornmeal and mixed with meat and vegetables, it is steamed in a colander and unmolded onto a platter before serving.

Like the Italian timbale or, for that matter, my mother's molded jello salad, the outside is often elaborately decorated with sliced hearts of palm, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes or roasted peppers. And, as was intended, it elicited admiring "oohs" and "aahs" from the other members of our little taxonomic gathering.

Chicken Cuscuz or Cuscuz de Galinha
Adapted from Brazilian Cookery by Margarette de Andrade

Judy reminded me that cuscuz, like potato salad, differs from household to household, and ingredients can be adjusted to whatever you have on hand. It can also be made with chicken, animal meat, fish or shrimp, so have fun and create your own unique version.

For the cornmeal:
4 c. white cornmeal
1 c. boiling salted water
1/4 lb. (1 stick) butter or 1/2 c. olive oil (?)

For the cuscuz:
1 stewed chicken (or store-bought rotisserie chicken)
1 1/2 c. gravy or stock
2 or 3 malagueta peppers, pounded (optional)
1/2 c. melted butter or olive oil
1/4 c. parsley, chopped
Cornmeal mixture
1/2 lb. smoked pork sausages, fried, or leftover meat
1 lb. peas, cooked
1 10-oz. can hearts of palm, sliced
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced
Olives, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350°. Put cornmeal in shallow baking dish and place in oven for 5 minutes, stirring 3 or 4 times with a long-handled spoon so that the meal bakes evenly. As soon as the meal begins to turn a light beige, remove from the oven, sprinkle 1 c. of the boiling salted water over it, stir well with a fork and return to the oven for 2 minutes. The meal should then have irregular flakes. Add 1/4 lb. butter (or olive oil) and mix well.

Heat boned chicken with gravy or stock, add peppers, butter (or olive oil), parsley and correct the seasoning. Remove from heat, add cornmeal mixture, knead, then add sausages or leftover meat. If you can form a small ball with the mixture that will retain its shape, it is of the proper consistency. If it is too dry, moisten with more stock or water.

Traditionally made in a cuscuzeiro, a sort of large double boiler with perforations in the upper section, you can assemble your cuscuz in a medium-sized colander.

First layer: Oil the bottom and sides of the cuscuzeiro or colander and arrange sliced tomatoes, eggs and olives in a symmetrical design, along with a little of the meal mixture. [Judy included 1 tin of anchovies, which added its umami to the finished dish - KAB]

Second layer: Add more meal mixture, press against the sides and bottom, then cover with the peas, palm hearts tomatoes, eggs and olives and alternate with the meal mixture until all ingredients are used. Cover with a cloth napkin or top with a layer of fresh kale or collards.

Place an inverted cake pan in the bottom of a large saucepan or Dutch oven, then pour in boiling water so that it covers the bottom of the saucepan or oven and comes halfway up the side of the cake pan. Place colander on top of the cake pan, making sure the water does not touch the colander. Tightly cover the pot and steam on top of the stove until the napkin is very wet or the kale and collards are cooked, about 20 minutes. Remove the napkin (or greens) and let the cuscuz stand for approximately 10 minutes. Unmold by placing a serving platter upside down on top of the colander and carefully flip them over. Lightly tap the colander to release the cuscuz. Remove the colander and garnish with slices of orange or more slices of hearts of palm. Serve with a bottle of Brazilian hot sauce, Tabasco or other pepper sauce on the side.

Soups of Summer: Chilled Garlic Soup

Having grown up on Campbell's from the can plopped into a pan and heated to boiling, the idea of a cold soup, much less one made from scratch, was a complete revelation. Cold cucumber soup, along with gazpacho, that crazy good concoction of garden-grown tomatoes and whatever vegetables were in season, were my gateway drugs of choice.

The other night at my friends Judy and Tom's, I got another chilled bowlful of summer to add to the list: a so-called "white gazpacho" that Judy learned to make when Tom was teaching in Spain (see her recipe for feijoada from their Brazil sojourn). Cool and light with that requisite zing from the garlic and a soothing sweetness from halved grapes, this was a perfect starter to a summer evening in the back yard.

It would also be terrific poured into a lidded pitcher and taken on a picnic (or a concert on the lawn) with a rotisserie chicken from the store and maybe a fruit salad with some chilled rosé. Hmmm…do I sound ready for some summer fun?

Sopa de Ajo Blanco

1/2 c. blanched almonds
3-4 slices of large-sized baguette, more if using smaller loaf
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp. salt
4 c. water
5 Tbsp. olive oil
3-4 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
16-20 seedless green grapes

Put slices of bread in water to soak. Peel garlic. While bread soaks, put garlic and almonds in processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Squeeze water from bread, tear into pices and add bread and salt to blender. While blending slowly, add oil, vinegar and finally water to blender. Taste, adjusting salt, vinegar and oil to taste. Chill at least 2-3 hours or overnight. Serve grapes on side, or put several in soup bowl and pour soup over grapes. Serves 4.

Feeling Like Feijoada?

Call it braising, stewing or what-have-you, but long-simmered ingredients are common to most cultures, whether they eat meat or not. I consider thick soups (we call it "stewp") to be in the same category, since they're hearty and comforting and nutritious all at once.

And with the record-setting rainy days we've been having lately…heck, let's just call them downright ugly…having something warming all day on a back burner is just what the doctor ordered. The other evening the prescription was filled by our friends Judy and Tom, who recently moved here from California.

At one time Tom was a guest professor in Brazil, and Judy learned to make several of the local specialties, including a fabulous feijoada, a stew of beans and meat that, depending on where you look, came from Portugal to Brazil with early settlers or originated with African-descended cooks in colonial Brazil. Either way, it has since become the national dish. To make the invitation even more attractive, they let it slip that Tom was making caipirinhas (right) to accompany the meal. Little did they know that just saying "How would you like to come over?" is normally enough for us to jump.

Walking in, we were met by the aroma of meaty goodness wafting toward us, the source being a pot of reddish liquid bubbling away in the kitchen, with large hunks of beef and pork slowly melting into it. Beforehand I'd suggested to Judy that a trip to Gartner's might be in order, and they were astonished that in the (seeming) miles of cases were all the sausages, tongue and pork parts the recipe called for.

That recipe came from a book called Brazilian Cookery by Margarette de Andrade, an American who married a Brazilian journalist and diplomat, then became an expert on the cuisine of her adopted country. As Ms. de Andrade suggested, Judy separated the beans and meat, serving the beans over rice, then passing the meat on a platter. That was then topped with a Brazilian version of pico de gallo (onions, tomatoes, cilatro, olive oil, vinegar and salt) and sprinkled with a granular cassava or manioc flour that helps to sop up some of the fat and juices from the meat. All this and sides of collards sautéed with bacon and orange slices…well, to put it mildly, we were in heaven.

All it takes is a glance at the recipe to appreciate how much time and work went into making this meal the spectacular success it was. For something simply called a "stew," it's no easy feat. Here's to talented friends!

Feijoada No. 1

From "Brazilian Cookery: Traditional and Modern" by Margarette de Andrade

5 c. black beans
1 lb. jerked beef [carne seca in Brazil - optional]
1 small smoked tongue [unsmoked is fine]
1/2 lb. Canadian bacon
1 lb. fresh sausages
1 lb. corned spareribs [plain are fine, too]
1 lb. smoked sausages or Portuguese sausages
2 pig's feet [optional]
1 lb. lean beef, cut in half
1/4 lb. lean bacon
1 Tbsp. shortening [olive oil is fine]
2 lg. chopped onions
3 crushed garlic cloves
1 chopped tomato (optional)
1 Tbsp. chopped parsley (optional)
1 crushed hot pepper (optional)

Pick over beans, wash and soak overnight in cold water. Soak jerked beef, tongue, Canadian bacon overnight in separate pans of cold water. Next morning, drain the beans (if any liquid remains), cover with fresh cold water and cook for about 2 1/2 hours in covered saucepan, adding, as needed, sufficient water to keep the beans covered. When beans are cooked and tender, remove about 1/4 c. of the bean liquor and set aside to cool and to be used for preparing the special hot sauce served with the Feijoada.

Meanwhile, as the beans are cooking, prepare the meats as follows, always removing them from the liquid in which they were cooked: Drain the jerked beef, cover with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour, or until fork tender. Remove, cut into 1-inch strips and set aside. Parboil tongue long enough to be able to remove skin, and set aside. Prick fresh sausages, parboil [or brown] and set aside. Parboil Canadian bacon, spareribs, smoked sausages and pig's feet and set aside.

Place all the meats, except the fresh pork sausages but including the beef and bacon, in a very large saucepan, cover with tepid water, slowly bring to a boil and simmer until the meats are tender (about 1 1/2 hours). Drain all the meats and add to the beans with the pork sausages. Simmer until meats are very tender and beans are soft enough to mash easily. Season with salt.

About 1/2 hour before serving melt the shortening in a large skillet and gently sauté the onions and garlic. If the optional ingredients are desired, they also should be sautéed at this time. Add about 2 c. or ladles of the beans and mash with a wooden spoon or mallet. Pour about 2 c. of the bean liquor over the mixture, simmer until mixture thickens, then return to the pot containing beans and meats. Simmer until thoroughly blended, about 1/2 an hour. Taste and correct seasoning.

To serve: Remove the meats from the beans and slice so that each person may have a small portion of the various kinds of meat. According to long-established custom, the tongue is placed in the center of the platter and the smoked meats at one end while the fresh meats are arranged attractively at the other end of the platter. Moisten the meats with a small ladle of the bean liquor.

The beans are served in a soup tureen or deep serving dish. The guest helps himself to an assortment of meats and places a serving of Brazilian Rice [rice with onion and tomato - Judy said most places just use plain rice] to one side of the plate. The beans with their rich sauce are ladled over the rice while manioc meal or Butter Farofa [butter, egg, onion, manioc meal] is sprinkled over the beans or meats. Sliced oranges and Couve à Mineira [kale or collards cooking in bacon fat] accompany the feijoada as well as a special hot sauce, Molho de Pimenta e Limao [pepper and lemon "sauce," a version of the pico de gallo mentioned above], to which some of the bean liquor is added. Brazilian rum [cachaça, more properly a brandy since it is distilled from fermented sugar cane juice rather than the molasses used for rum] is also served with this meal or else a Batida [a mixed cocktail, like the caipirinha mentioned above, made with cachaça].