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.

Full Steam

Full steam, or should I say "full smoke"? I am back baking full power. Not always in my wood-fired oven, sometimes due to time crunch or because sometimes I need a more reliable oven. To tell you the truth, I have not mastered the wood firing system and I can´t trust myself the oven is going to be ready by the time the dough is. That´s why making pizza is so easy - you can keep feeding the fire until the pie is ready to go.
This time I played with new recipes such as sweet potato bun, pesto potato bread, semolina bread, hamburger bun, and the two great findings: focaccia made from overnight poolish (www.breadcetera.com) and English muffin, which it is not strictly baking, but it is bread. The recipe from www.macheesmo.com directed to stick the fried muffin into the oven so to finish cooking. Great tip! It made superb Eggs Benedict. Semolina bread was also from the same guy. I had never been able to make such a nicely dense bread in texture, yet light in taste. This was good with mortadella (better kind of bologna).

Sweet Potato Buns from http://blogmaetocomfome.blogspot.com.br/2013/05/pao-de-batata-doce.html (In Portuguese)

Pesto Potato Bread from don´t know where recipe...

40-Minute Hamburger Buns from http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/40-minute-hamburger-buns

Focaccia from http://www.breadcetera.com/?tag=focaccia

We Go (coco)Nuts!

What if you have more coconuts than you can drink their water?



Yes! We primarily plant coconuts for the water it stores in young green fruit.
And...what if the coconuts are becoming riper and the water inside is drying out, while its pulp is getting thicker?




The only solution is to use the ripe pulp to make sweets and baked goods.

This one is called "queijadinha" - cheesecake, but it is actually made with grated coconut and just a little bit of cheese.



RECIPE:

4 eggs
1 cup sugar or sweetened condensed milk
2 TBSP butter
4 TBSP grated cheese (we use "meia cura", mild parmesan-like cheese)
200 grams fresh grated coconut (or hydrated dry coconut flakes)
1 cup coconut milk (or milk)
3 TBSP white flour
1 tsp baking powder

Beat the above ingredients item by item, until all incorporated. Bake at 375 F.
Now, the country cooking will throw all ingredients, and perhaps omitting the liquid, and leaving out flour and baking powder, for they prime the real taste of coconut.

Green Papaya Compote

What should we do when we have soo many green papayas on the tree?




Green Papaya Compote, of course!




We don´t have real winters in most of Brazil, so no need to preserve seasonal fruits or vegetables - we have them all year round. When we do, it is because we want to eat it for our afternoon snack (we call it "afternoon coffee" - café da tarde). Green papaya compote is one of the most popular, as papaya trees can grow anywhere taking up little space.

RECIPE: get a fully grown green papaya (not baby one, but before it starts to ripen) from the tree. Let it stand one night to draw out milky sap. The next day, peel it, cut it into pieces. Thicker pieces make creamier ones. Let the pieces soak overnight in water with one teaspoon of baking soda (for a crispy outside and creamy inside). Add sugar (less than a kilo of sugar for a kilo of green papaya) and about 2 cups of water to make syrup. Cook all the ingredients together with cinnamon sticks and cloves. Optional: add 2 fig leaves for aroma. This is a homemade recipe. You can have syrup in various degrees of thickness, color, or sweetness.

Green Fig Compote

I have a young purple fig tree with lots of green fruits...





So I had a good idea!





Made into green fig compote and served with Gorgonzola cheese...



Today I sliced the figs, placed over crackers, and sprinkled with Gorgonzola cheese for our afternoon tea at the church. It was rather an exotic plate for the type of cheese. Brazilians usually like to combine homemade preserves with fresh farmer´s cheese.

RECIPE: A bit laborious but well worth it. Pick green figs with gloves (or the milky sap may cause allergy), wash them, and put into boiling water for 10 minutes. Put them into the freezer until rock hard. Under the running water, peel each fruit (unless you don´t mind the skin). Drop peeled figs, some whole, some cut into half (your choice), cover with water, and add coarse sugar (granulated sugar is fine) to your taste. Usually, 1 kilo of fruit calls for 500 grams to 1 kilo of sugar. I used something in between. I allowed the fruits to cook and added a little more water to keep the syrup level at fruit level (that is, plenty of syrup). To make the compote taste and smell like figs, I added 3 leaves while cooking. Very often, we make green papaya compote (same process) but add fig leaves for the aroma. We like to add cinnamon sticks and cloves.

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.

Okra

Okra plant. Pods clinging too long...they may get woody. Not all Brazilians like okra - slime is to blame - nonetheless, the rest of us is absolutely crazy about it. To avoid getting it slimy, I heard you can add vinegar or lemon while cooking or washing, I am not sure. I do none of them. My strategy is to fry in hot oil, without stirring too much. Cutting into bigger pieces and patting washed okra dry also helps. Okra goes well in tempura, deep-fried coated with cornmeal, fried like potato chips, smothered with tomatoes, and combined with shrimp or chicken. We, country people, hundreds of miles away from the beach, eat smothered chicken with okra which is previously fried and added at the end (to avoid slime). Yeah, we can pickle okra too. I also eat it raw, sliced in diagonal, with soy sauce and drops of lemon. It can´t get any simpler.

Smothered Chicken in Fresh Turmeric, Mustard Leaves and Okra

My neighbor Rosa gave me a freshly butchered chicken that minutes before was freely running around her house. It was a payback for something that I don´t remember what. We trade goodies so often that it became part of our routine.
The free-roaming chicken was never part of my diet growing up. The first time that I saw it on a pot, I thought it was strange: skinny long legs, speckled yellow skin, though, and very little meat to eat. I have noticed lately that farm-raised chicken has been smelling strong, with soft slimy flesh, with fat marbling the breast fillet. So when my neighbor told me she would give me one from her stock, I watched as many videos possible on how best to cook it. While I used a crockpot to make the stock, I marinated the rest of the meat in garlic, onions, salt, and pepper overnight. (Brazilian cuisine is not much more than garlic-onion based seasoning.) In a large casserole, I fried the pieces until golden brown. I stepped out of the kitchen and plucked the roots of turmeric. I had never gotten turmeric roots before, so I was not sure I would find any. What a nice surprise to collect small, yet dark yellow roots that smelled earthy. I added small amounts of hot stock and ran again to my veggie garden to pick up some mustard leaves, cilantro, parsley, and green onions. Some more hot stock to pick up fresh corn, which was badly attacked by a bird from the parrot family. In the small patch of okra bushes, I have more pods than I can pick or eat. In an hour, lunch was late but ready. Such a delicious, substantial meal that I need a nap now.

Christmas Bread Panetone

Another quiet Christmas on the farm with my daughter being away. But the days that preceded Christmas, I baked panettone, an Italian round tall bread filled with candied fruits and raisins or with chocolate chips. My first attempt was a disaster. I followed a recipe that required a long rise, two days of work, just to have all the top burned by tucking it into a too hot an oven. I used a wood-fired oven, and I still don´t know what´s the right temperature for each dish. The second panettone was filled with chocolate chip and topped with ganache. They turned out very velvety, moist, and delicious. This time I used a regular gas oven. The third recipe I chose to fill it with dulce de leche (some kind of hard caramel). I made a mistake with the amount of butter and again, it was a failure. The bread didn´t rise properly while baking. But I still could give to my neighbors. But I was decided to make one great panettone, so again, I was mixing the ingredients when my mother had a seizure so I had to put the dough into the fridge to run to the hospital. When I got back home at 1:30 a.m., I didn´t feel like cooking. So I proceeded the next day, turning out a good panettone. The panettones and the two loaves on the photo are from this batch. I gave it to my friends as Christmas gifts. I felt as I had done a great accomplishment. But I was still not happy with sweetbreads and wanted to bake one more panettone, a savory one, filled with some kind of beef jerky, properly de-salted, cooked, shredded, and cooked with onions. This time, it was a success. The recipe asked for dark beer, milk powder, and even kummel, which I didn´t find in the market. So it went without it. Again, I gave one to each of my three farmer friends. Panetone dough is different from all other bread I have made before, as the dough is quite sticky, with high hydration. It is thicker than cake mix and wetter than bread dough. It also takes a lot of butter and egg yolks, a typical holiday bread. Panetone with its orange-butter-vanilla aroma, fruits, chocolate, caramel, the rich dough is a feast in itself. It is a kind of bread we can´t go without. It is a symbol of Christmas which for me exhale beauty, abundance, generosity, and love.

Mochi Making

Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice traditionally eaten on New Year´s Day. The mochi making process can be a ceremonial event or not. In my case, I made the way I thought it would work. I soaked the rice overnight, drained it the next day, and then ground it in an electric coffee grinder and put it to cook in a microwave oven with a little bit of water. After about 6 minutes of cooking, I pounded it with either a wooden spoon or with my new Kitchen Aid. After a few minutes, I shaped it into 2-inch rounds. The rice cake itself is very bland, and I love it for the texture. I can fry in a little oil, and then season with soy sauce and sugar or boil in a soy sauce seasoned broth. This time I wanted to make daifuku, which is mochi filled with sweetened azuki bean paste I made from scratch. Not hard at all. I just soaked the beans overnight, cooked it, drained it a bit, and cooked with sugar. As I stir with a wooden spoon, the beans break turning into a paste. Yummy! My interest in Japanese cooking became revived by watching animes, where the presentation of traditional food is quite common. Then, I search online for recipes and ideas. I have enjoyed on youtube "cooking with dog", "runnyrunny999", and "delicious nippon". I am still to make some dango, which ingredient I can´t find where I live, and I believe, some found in Brazil is imported. I may try to make the rice flour myself and make the dumplings later. Let´s see...

Baking Season

Two beautiful Fall days in the middle of Summer. Who can explain that? It’s darker in the morning around 7, but the evening is still long with daylight savings. The sun rays have the orange hue, different from Spring were the sparkling silver rays invade all rooms. The lack of natural beauty of our landscape on the farm makes me enjoy the sensation brought by other senses. I am lucky for that matter. I am not a visual person.
February is here. My 10-year-old daughter is back in school. I still have to drive her five days a week on a rather short drive (about 6 miles) on a flat and straight road, but dangerous due to drivers’ carelessness.
December and January were cooking, baking, eating months. Even though the doctor suspects I have gluten intolerance (no exams done), I baked several times a week using my newly assembled wood-fired oven. But the highlight was the church gathering day at my house. I tested several pizza dough recipes, watched the oven, learned to open the skin by hand until I found the best dough and the best way of serving piping hot pizza straight from the oven for several people. I didn’t know how many would come, so I planned for 30. I soon found out that I couldn’t open the skin and bake a raw crust to serve 30 hurried peopled at once. Too many issues involving the making of the perfect pizza, Neapolitan style. I had to compromise. I parbaked the crust a day before, topped 3 pizzas just 2 hours prior to serving, and hired a neighbor dona Rosa to take care of the baking. I took care of topping the pizza as the first ones got done. On my list, nine different combinations which included the all-American pepperoni or sausage, mushrooms, and bell peppers; also sliced smoked pork sausage with onions; ham, peas, onions, cooked eggs. All pizzas take tomato sauce (made with fresh and canned tomatoes) and mozzarella cheese. The event was a success, so much that I totally forgot to take a picture of the crowd around the pizza, all praising me with a full mouth, not knowing if they should speak or chew. I was as busy as a pizza maker on a ball day, topping on disk after the other. Later, I had to ask other people who ate what, who took the first piece, who had anchovy with olives. I sent home a few people with pizza for their family. “We had plenty. My husband ate, and even my mother-in-law” – someone told me.
I can't help myself but continue cooking, baking, soap making, and all. I also baked old fashioned English bread called scone to be dipped in lemon curd (it's a lemon season), Brazilian finger good called "empada" - little chicken pies, sweet rolls, broa (a country bread made in cooked corn and wheat flour, and later baked), Brazilian cheese bread, chocolate chip cookie, anise biscotti dipped in chocolate, whole wheat bread, and even "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" bread. And more pizzas, of course.
I can't post pictures of all my bakings, neither remember all that I cooked - there were so many goodies.

Portuguese Bread Folar

Folar is an Easter bread that can be sweet or savory, depending upon the region of Portugal. What is different about this recipe is the incredible amount of eggs in the dough. The best thing is that it turns out light, fluffy, yet full of flavor, with a delicate crust that melts in the mouth. The first time I heard about folar was at a hair salon. The lady taught me how to make this bread, and also paella with rabbit meat. I never got to make the paella her way, but I sure made folar a few times. Over twenty years had passed, and here am I again making folar on an improved recipe I found on the internet at www.gastronomias.com. For those ones who cannot read Portuguese, I shall translate it for you with my own personal twist (and experience). This is a great recipe. 1 kg all-purpose flour 12 eggs (yes, 12!) with shells warmed in warm water before breaking 250g melted butter 50g olive oil 30g compressed fresh yeast melted in ¼ cup warm water Warm milk and salt Smoked sausage sliced, salt pork or bacon cut into small cubes, ham, roasted chicken In a large bowl, make a well in the center of the flour. Pour melted yeast and eggs, mixing in a circle, adding the flour little by little. Add butter and oil. If the dough is stiff, add a little bit of warm milk with salt to taste. It´s a soft dough, so you do more beating kind of movement than kneading until it forms a ball. Let it rise. The recipe instructs to divide the dough into 3 and make layers (like lasagna) with meat. Let it rise again, and then, brush with egg wash, and bake in a hot oven for 45 minutes. I have done it differently. I was so tired and sleepy that night that I stashed into the fridge until the next morning. I took it out of the fridge, kneaded a bit, and stretched with a hand roller. I cut the dough into 2, opened it like a pizza crust, and spread the meat over. I rolled it (like would sushi), tucked the sides underneath, and let it rise. Over two hours later, and with the dough risen greatly, I popped them in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. I lowed the temperature a bit, so as not to burn. They came out huge, light, fluffy, and tasty. The next day I used the same recipe and process, but filled with provolone cheese and the other piece with green olives. I can’t say which one is the best.

Getting the Real Thing

When I first took an interest in country-style bread baked in a wood-fired oven, I asked my neighbor that I barely knew to teach me the secrets of the trade. I was after the type of bread stored in my childhood memories that tasted much different from the bread I eat today, even if baked in wood-fired ovens. Dona Rosa, then, told me that her sister who lives several miles away had “yeast in a bottle”. A few days ago, I put in a bag a package of cookies, flour, and sugar (these were to be given as gifts), picked up Dona Rosa, and headed for her sister´s house. She lives in a very small rural community of dozen homes in a rather scenic route. I used to drive this road while taking “Pro-Milk”, a course to learn how to work with milking cows. We were greeted by four women, an elderly lady, two middle-aged women, and a teenager. The older lady is Dona Rosa´s mother who is already a great-great-grandmother. Dona Rosa herself turned a great-grandmother at the age of 50. Anyway, we all seated on the sofa and they talked about people’s state of health. I tried to be interested but my mind wondered how soon I was going to see the starter. I noticed that the wood walls looked grungy, as my mom used to say the wood houses always look dirty and dark. Sometimes it holds a smell. At a certain point, the lady announced that she would make some coffee and disappeared into the kitchen. About thirty minutes later, she invited us to sit at the table. She served us two plain deep-fried dough. Davina said that the first one was made of flour, water, and baking powder. The second one was made with a sourdough starter, “so I could see the difference”. Anything fried makes just flour and water taste delicious. Some were puffed up, but they had no filling. Over an hour and still no signs of the starter. Only when everybody was finished, included some family members that joined us later that Davina took the prized starter from the fridge, kept in a 1-liter Coke plastic bottle. About one inch of flour on the bottom, and 500 ml of liquid. It was inert, no bubbles or foam. It looked flat and watery. She gave me the recipe to feed the starter: 9 tablespoons of flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt. She omits the type of spoon, so on my first experience, I added too much salt. The great day came; I treated my starter, took half for the bread, and kept half in the fridge. The bread recipe was 2 kg flour, 500 or 600 ml starter, less than a cup of oil, some water, sugar, and salt. The dough came out very stiff, but I didn’t know how it was supposed to be. So I added more starter and oil. I left the dough rest for the night, punched it down the next morning, stretched the dough with a hand roller, and free-formed them. Another few hours until they went to Dona Rosa’s wood-fired oven. The bread smelled like sweet yeast (if this thing exists), it tasted slightly sour, but not quite like California sourdough bread. The density and the texture, besides the pale color of the crust, definitely I can tell that I have reproduced the bread of my childhood. The bread became better with further bakings, and I have used the starter to make a deep-fried dough and also pizza crust. I thought to be a mix of tough and chewy crust, but the taste had character. Something to become addicted to. The next day, I heated over a dry pan and the crust became crunch and even more delicious. I am still to try sourdough pancakes and guava paste filled fried dough. Yeah, I dumped the two other starters I had made at home from scratch. They were too sour, almost offensive. To taste, the “yeast in a bottle” is sweet and mild. Interestingly, it rises better in a tall narrow container. When kept tightly closed in a bottle, at the opening, it may burst like champagne. How fun!

Green Bananas

Banana is the most popular and the cheapest fruit in Brazil. We appreciate it in several ways, raw, cooked, baked, grilled, ripe, or green. Yes, green bananas can be made into chips. But the latest findings came from Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Norte where researchers claim that a certain substance (inulin) in the green banana helps the digestion and in weight loss program. It is recommended to take 2 tablespoons the first thing in the morning and before going to bed. You can always mix it into soups, cakes, stews, and smoothies. Cooked green bananas smell like asparagus (!) and the cooked skin tastes like one. But the texture is different. Even after blended, it resembles pureed asparagus. Fry lots of garlic in olive oil, add pureed green bananas, and here is an original creme of bananas. Here is the recipe: 3 green bananas with the peel, stalk and the bottom removed, washed Boiling water enough to cover the bananas (for cooking) 1 1/2 cup Boiling water for blending Cook bananas with the peel on for 20 minutes or until soft. Peel the bananas, discard skin, and the cooking water. Place pulp in a blender and blend in with boiling water. "The result starts to appear in two weeks added to a healthy diet and exercise", claims the dietician. With a healthy diet and exercise, no need for a puree of green bananas I believe. But it is supposed to be very healthy, fat-free, sugar-free, so, why not to try?