Colorau - Food Coloring from Nature

This is a red food coloring agent largely used in Brazilian cuisine. It is known as colorau, which is extracted from urucum seeds (annatto or achiote in America).

Urucum (bixa orellana L)

Urucum tree is easy to grow. This one (and several others) is by the country road near my farm. It´s April.

It looks dangerous because of the spiky shell, but it is pretty soft at this point.

Wait until it gets to this point. You will need gloves to pick them. It´s September. It takes 5 months to mature.

Look what a jewel it hides inside.

The seeds come out easily by touch (make sure you wear gloves or you are going to have your hands like those of the Moroccan women - all tainted by handling bright-colored spices).
But you don´t want to use urucum like this. The seeds are rock hard and may break your teeth. Simmer a good amount of seeds in mild vegetable oil and then use a mortar and a pestle to rub the color off by adding fine cornmeal.
Sorry, no pictures of me processing the urucum. I don´t extract colorau. I get it from my neighbor.
It is said it tastes slightly peppery with a hint of nutmeg, but I personally think it smells like oil and cornmeal.

Turmeric Time

That´s how most of us know store bought turmeric - as a yellow powder






But it actually comes from a gingerlike root - Curcuma Longa





It starts from a plant like these - the leaves should be dry (mine are not quite yet)





Dig the small roots out to your joy!





Such a delight to see these wonderful "gold from the earth" - as it is known in certain parts of Brazil - sunbathing




For culinary use, I can just smash it, cut it, or grate it into the cooking rice or stews. But if I want to store it in a powder form, I heard, I need to boil, dry, and grate. Some people just sun dry it before grating. In either case, you will be rewarded with bright yellow tainted palms just like Moroccan women.