Time for our next entry in the great Bread & Soup Project! Brazil! Being our neighbor, and having at least a passing familiarity with the food, I thought, picking out the appropriate bread and soup would be easy. But then, Brazil is a massive country, with regional culinary differences that vary from Portuguese to African to Indigenous, to a wide variety of other influences. With 209 million people, I doubt you could get anyone to agree on either a national bread nor soup. I’m not even sure you could sell all of them on what purports to be the national dish, feijoada, which shows up in version that look like a bowl of stew, to versions that look like a collection of plates of separate meats and vegetables.

I think you could get a large percentage of folk to agree that beans are a big part of the cuisine, in almost every region. The type of bean varies, so that came down to me simply picking one, and I went with black beans for a reasonably classic Caldinha de Feijão, basically, “bean soup”. And while, given the origin of this project, back at the beginning I would have leaned towards pasteis, the Brazilian version of empanadas (which, in my since disproven theory early on, I asserted that there is some form of empanada in every cuisine). But I’ve moved on from that theory and focused more on classic breads, and I think you could also get most Brazilians to agree that Pão de Queijo, Cheese Bread, is something they could all identify with.

 

Not surprisingly, there are innumerable recipes for pão de queijo, but easiest for me, I went with the version I was taught by my mentor of Brazilian cooking, Eduardo, many moons ago. By the way, for those of you on the gluten-free bandwagon, this is libre de glutena! Four cups (500 gm) of mandioca (or yuca) starch (many of you probably know it as tapioca starch); 1 cup (240 ml) each of water, milk, and neutral vegetable oil; 1 Tb salt; 4 eggs; 2 cups grated cheese (I used sardo, which is the local version of pecorino).

Bring the three liquids to a boil.

In a mixing bowl, put the starch and the salt together and mix thoroughly with the boiling liquids. The texture at this point is sort of like soft rubber.

Mix in the eggs and the cheese – this will take a little work to incorporate them into that rubbery mass. At the end though, you end up with a well kneaded dough that has the texture of a marshmallow.

Lightly oil your hands so the dough won’t stick to them and form into roughly 20-24 balls (there’s another tray of these off to the side).

Bake at 180°C/350°F until puffed and golden brown – about 25-30 minutes. Inside, they’ll have all that melted cheese – when they cool, they tend to get sort of… solid. Ten to twenty seconds in the microwave to warm them up, melt the cheese again, and they’re perfect to eat!

 

On to our soup. Again – a zillion versions of black bean soup out there. First off, the beans – I didn’t think I needed to show you that part – I’ve par-cooked them with a bay leaf in the pot until soft. I started with 2 cups of dried beans, so about 5-6 cups cooked. The rest of the ingredients – 1 medium onion, 1 large carrot, 1 small bell pepper, all in small dice; 2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped; a couple of rashers of bacon, chopped; 1-2 chicken breasts, diced (depends on how much chicken you want in it – you could even leave it and the bacon out and make a vegetarian version); 2 cups of chicken stock; 1/4 cup of rum or sherry or maybe even cachaça…; 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp chili flakes; 1/4 tsp clove; 1 tsp coriander, all ground; 2 limes. Not shown, garnishes – some chopped green onion and some sour cream – probably not overly traditional, which might, more likely, be shredded couve, Brazilian collard greens that have been quickly sauteed, and farofa, which is coarse ground manioc, or yuca, that’s been dried and toasted.

In a little oil, saute the onion, carrot, bell pepper, garlic, and panceta until the vegetables are softened.

Add the chicken and spices and cook for about 5 minutes, until the chicken is lightly browned.

Add 2/3 of the black beans and the chicken stock. Take the other third of the black beans and put them in the blender with 2 cups of water, and create a puree. Add that to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat so the soup simmers, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the rum and the juice of the two limes. And, parabens! You’ve got your black bean soup.

And a look, again, at your dinner, ready to eat… (I cut one of the rolls open so you can see what it looks like inside).

Next time… it looks to be, the British Virgin Islands….