We're on to the letter "B" in our trip around the world of international taste travels, and we have landed in the country of Brazil. We also looked at Belgium and Bolivia. We thought Bahrain might be a little tough to tackle, so we eliminated that off our list early on. Belgium finished a close second though!
Once again, Lauri and I researched the internet perusing several websites for Brazilian treats, and we came across several that had significant samplings of South American flavors. We opted for a seafood dish this time and wanted to take it easy on the yard-birds since we used those for the Armenian feast. We also wanted to make sure we had a vegetable dish, a bread item and a (gasp) dessert! If you read the last blog, you will recall that we blundered and bollixed that dessert like monkeys and footballs. Would Brazilian dessert serve us up the same fate?
So on to the menu... We decided on a shrimp dish called "Vatapa" which consisted of a rue-like sauce with onions, crushed nuts, red chilies, garlic and smooshed up bread served with boiled shrimp over a bed of rice. For the vegetable, we chose a Brazilian potato salad called "Maionese" which sounds a lot like mayonnaise (for good reason, as you will find out). For the bread, we found a popular Brazilian item called "Queijo" which translates to cheese rolls. And then for dessert, we picked "Quindim" which is Portuguese for PAIN IN THE ASS, or otherwise known as egg and coconut pudding.
In this go-around, Lauri and I wanted to make sure the ingredient list wasn't too difficult to come by, since last time we got stymied on currants, and pine nuts were too expensive. Everything looked relatively harmless with the most unusual ingredient being tapioca starch for the, you guessed it, dessert from hell. Tapioca starch, eh? The local HyVee has all kinds of flours, starches and organic ingredients--should be a piece of cake, right?
Shopping: So off we go to the store with ingredient list in hand. The first time we went shopping for our Armenian dinner, we went to the nice, big HyVee with big aisles and helpful sm
iles. The other HyVee that we chose to shop at this time had tight aisles and harmful frowns, with a side of rudeness and Seinfeld-like jerkstore behaviors from the regulars. What is the deal with people hanging around the end of an aisle blocking the entrance/exit while they look at the plethora of taco seasoning packets? Is there that big a difference between Old El Paso and Ortega??? At $.29 a packet, I'm thinking "just pick both, lady!"In our usual fashion of wandering down aisles, we hit our first road-bump for finding red chilies... UGH. I asked the produce girl if they had such a thing, and she quipped, "Why no sir, we don't." GREAT. So I hit the salad section and picked up a tube of red chili paste-this will have to do. Everything else was attainable and easy until it was time for the tapioca starch. Ezqueeze me, I baking powder? Yes, we have no tapioca starch today! Again, we strike out on a key ingredient, so after milling about aimlessly in the Ethnic section, we decided to hit the specialty Mexican grocery store downtown. The excitement was back and we bounded out to the car with a renewed sense of purpose... That is, until the Mexican store had NOTHING of the sort. I asked the grocer lady if she even heard of such a thing and she said NO way, Hose Ay. So let's use cornstarch, okay? Starch is starch, right? Wrong.
Prep: Prep was a breeze compared to Armenian night which took about six hours. Brazil night only required about three hours. Once again, we tag-teamed on getting stuff ready. I handled the veggie prep and Lauri got all the dry and wet ingredients in order. Once again, I found myself peeling potatoes and probably a little of my knuckles for about 30 minutes. I also cut and chopped carrots, onions, hearts of palm, olives and green beans. I had quite a nice batch of diced veggies for the potato salad. By the way, this is the first time, we have ever had heart of palm... it had the consistency and look of string cheese and tastes a bit like water chestnuts, but the texture was much softer, like a hard-boiled egg. In any event, stirred all that stuff up into a bowl with an entire jar of mayonnaise and at that point, I figured out why they call this dish "maionese." Once I had the potatoes well-boiled, I cooled them off in cold water, and mixed them up with their veggie brethren, then popped it into the fridge.
Lauri had begun prep on the cheese rolls and egg/coconut pudding dishes. She had to separate an entire carton of eggs and only use egg yolks for the pudding. 12 egg yolks for a snack pack of pudding? Holy cholesterol, fatman! She added coconut milk, shredded coconut, sugar and even more sugar. Into the oven it went, and we were hoping that it would set.
The cheese rolls were a bit easier as it required starch, eggs, parmesan cheese and water. Again, we had to opt for a substitute ingredient and used cornstarch instead of the mysterious tapioca starch, which I am not even sure exists. And once again, we crossed our fingers that these would turn out okay.
And finally, the main course. We used frozen shrimp, (which was already cooked) and just let it thaw. The recipe called for frozen shrimp, but I would recommend raw, as cooked frozen shrimp dries out really quickly when cooking.
In the meantime, Lauri was blending the bread chunks with coconut milk to get that thick saucy goodness ready. I got the trusty slap-chop device out and proceeded to pummel an onion, garlic and red chili paste into oblivion for the rue. I also reduced two cups of cashews and peanuts into a fine powder with this wonderful, as-seen-on-TV device. Once I was finished crushing defenseless ingredients, I had to take a shower. I never knew how much work went into all that cutting board violence. With the shrimp thawed, the veggies and nuts chopped, it was time to start cooking.
Cooking: The potato salad was done and sitting in the fridge getting cold. We already tasted it, and it was exceptional and we will probably make it again. The pudding was just getting done. Lauri stuck a fork in it and it came out clear. AWESOME, we are two for two! Not so fast, my friend... She put it in a pan of ice water to cool and after about 20 minutes, dumped it out onto a plate. SPLAT! That freaking pudding was set on top, but the bottom was still runny and hotter than liquid hot magma. The old lady was beside herself (not unlike me a few weeks ago) and threatened to throw it into the sink. I had to calm her down by offering her a nice rum drink. So we threw it back in the bundt tin, and stuck it in the freezer.
The first batch of cheese rolls had just come out of the oven and they looked like those cheddar biscuits you get at Red Lobster. They had no smell whatsoever and when we sampled one, it was as bland as uhhh, cornstarch. Yes, the damned cornstarch dominated the little biscuits and masked the parmesan cheese. They were also as dense as Jupiter. Still, they looked wonderful.
The shrimp dish was going swimmingly as the rue came together with the sautéing of the onions, garlic and red chili paste, mixed with some olive oil and the smooshed bread. Then we boiled the shrimp. We took the shrimp water and added it slowly to the rue and it thickened nicely. We made some rice to accompany the sauce and it turned out beautifully. Then finally we added the shrimp to the rue mixture and things were looking good.
Until we checked the pudding again... Although it sat in the freezer for a good 30-45 minutes, it still had the consistency of gravy. What is it with us and desserts? We are Oh for TWO on dessert items. However, I wanted to take a picture of everything, so I blended the pudding water with the cooked chunks into a smoothie-like mixture and poured it into martini glasses, and then I put a little whip cream on top. I happened to get a couple snapshots before the whip cream literally sunk to the bottom the glass.
TIME to EAT! Everything looked delectable and we couldn't get our hands on that potato salad fast enough. It was chilled to perfection and ready to hit our gullets. The rice and shrimp mixture was staring us in the face as if to say, "Hey, we are the main course, chuckleheads--EAT US!" To be fair, I plated the shrimp dish next to the potato salad before I dug in. We then begrudgingly took a couple cornstarch rolls knowing that meh... they are a dense, tasteless ball of cement, but we felt obligated to each have one to complete the meal.
The shrimp dish was very tasty, but surprisingly, lacked heat. It was very nutty and earthy with the crushed nuts and onions dominating the flavor profile. You would think with red chilies added, that it would pack a little fire, but alas, the dish was cooler than the Fonz punching Ralph Malph in the arm. It was still tasty and how can you not love shrimpies? The potato salad was definitely the star of the show, as it was perfect in every way. Cool, creamy and chock full of flavors. I ate part of the cheese roll and snuck the rest of it to the dogs who were chewing on them like rawhide before swallowing.
Since we had tasted and sampled so many things before the actual dining experience, we became full quicker than normal. The pudding syrup would have to wait. Then, the unenviable task of cleanup took place and leftovers put away. I packed away some potato salad for my sister and mom and left a little bit for Skye (our son). He ate it the next day and seemed to like it a lot. Then I told him it had hearts of palm, and he turned 3 shades of blue. "You can't even tell it's in there, man!" You know these young people--if it doesn't have cheese, meat or ketchup, it's no good!
Cooking: The potato salad was done and sitting in the fridge getting cold. We already tasted it, and it was exceptional and we will probably make it again. The pudding was just getting done. Lauri stuck a fork in it and it came out clear. AWESOME, we are two for two! Not so fast, my friend... She put it in a pan of ice water to cool and after about 20 minutes, dumped it out onto a plate. SPLAT! That freaking pudding was set on top, but the bottom was still runny and hotter than liquid hot magma. The old lady was beside herself (not unlike me a few weeks ago) and threatened to throw it into the sink. I had to calm her down by offering her a nice rum drink. So we threw it back in the bundt tin, and stuck it in the freezer.
The first batch of cheese rolls had just come out of the oven and they looked like those cheddar biscuits you get at Red Lobster. They had no smell whatsoever and when we sampled one, it was as bland as uhhh, cornstarch. Yes, the damned cornstarch dominated the little biscuits and masked the parmesan cheese. They were also as dense as Jupiter. Still, they looked wonderful.
The shrimp dish was going swimmingly as the rue came together with the sautéing of the onions, garlic and red chili paste, mixed with some olive oil and the smooshed bread. Then we boiled the shrimp. We took the shrimp water and added it slowly to the rue and it thickened nicely. We made some rice to accompany the sauce and it turned out beautifully. Then finally we added the shrimp to the rue mixture and things were looking good.
Until we checked the pudding again... Although it sat in the freezer for a good 30-45 minutes, it still had the consistency of gravy. What is it with us and desserts? We are Oh for TWO on dessert items. However, I wanted to take a picture of everything, so I blended the pudding water with the cooked chunks into a smoothie-like mixture and poured it into martini glasses, and then I put a little whip cream on top. I happened to get a couple snapshots before the whip cream literally sunk to the bottom the glass.
TIME to EAT! Everything looked delectable and we couldn't get our hands on that potato salad fast enough. It was chilled to perfection and ready to hit our gullets. The rice and shrimp mixture was staring us in the face as if to say, "Hey, we are the main course, chuckleheads--EAT US!" To be fair, I plated the shrimp dish next to the potato salad before I dug in. We then begrudgingly took a couple cornstarch rolls knowing that meh... they are a dense, tasteless ball of cement, but we felt obligated to each have one to complete the meal.
The shrimp dish was very tasty, but surprisingly, lacked heat. It was very nutty and earthy with the crushed nuts and onions dominating the flavor profile. You would think with red chilies added, that it would pack a little fire, but alas, the dish was cooler than the Fonz punching Ralph Malph in the arm. It was still tasty and how can you not love shrimpies? The potato salad was definitely the star of the show, as it was perfect in every way. Cool, creamy and chock full of flavors. I ate part of the cheese roll and snuck the rest of it to the dogs who were chewing on them like rawhide before swallowing.
Since we had tasted and sampled so many things before the actual dining experience, we became full quicker than normal. The pudding syrup would have to wait. Then, the unenviable task of cleanup took place and leftovers put away. I packed away some potato salad for my sister and mom and left a little bit for Skye (our son). He ate it the next day and seemed to like it a lot. Then I told him it had hearts of palm, and he turned 3 shades of blue. "You can't even tell it's in there, man!" You know these young people--if it doesn't have cheese, meat or ketchup, it's no good!
So that wraps up the Brazilian Feast, and for the most part, it was a success. Overall, it was less spicy than you would think for South American fare, but delicious nonetheless. Again, there are a few ingredients that are hard to find, or may trip you up if the right substitute is not available.
Viva la Brasilia and keep adding that spice to your culinary experience!
Next up: C is for Cambodia
Viva la Brasilia and keep adding that spice to your culinary experience!
Next up: C is for Cambodia
