Moqueca Baiana

Last night was great. My Brazilian crew (Fabiola, Lenicio, Lusimar & Andre) and the other international folks (Karine & Claudine) threw me a surprise birthday party. They also taught me how to make Moqueca Baiana. This was a BIG deal for me. I actually tried making moqueca last spring using salmon filets, but wasn't terribly impressed by my efforts, but I was SUPER impressed yesterday.
Lenicio explained that there are two different types of moqueca, the one from the Bahia state (which is where he is from) and Moqueca Capixaba, from the southeast. The big difference between the two is that the Moqueca Baiana uses palm oil (dendê) and the Moqueca Capixaba does not.

It's really not a hard dish to make, the most work to do involves chopping the veggies, other than that, you just put the lid on and let it cook.

PS Thanks again to Lenicio for all his tips on how to make a great moqueca and to Fabiola for chopping all the vegetables before I got there. It was a GREAT party guys and I'll try to get the recipes up for the Pirao de peixe and the great bday cake you made Karine!


So onto the essential ingredients for all moquecas

For 6 to 8 people

2.250 kg Fish steaks (bones in). We used whiting, but halibut, tuna, and other hearty
fish that can be stewed would work too.

3 limes, juiced

1 tablespoon of colorau de urucum (a natural colourant used in Brazilian
cuisine, similar to the use of paparika in Portuguese cuisine)

1 teaspoon palm oil

3 teaspoons olive oil

5 Bell peppers, roughly chopped (we used 2 yellow, 2 red and 1 orange)

3 Medium sized onions, roughly chopped

6 Medium sized tomatoes, roughly chopped

6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 tablespoons tomatoe paste

3 pimento de cheiro (literally "the smelly pepper," they are very fragrant,
are yellow in colour and about the size of a grape. Available in Portuguese
or Brazilian food markets)

1 can coconut milk (NOT the one for baking)

1 bunch of fresh cilanto, finely chopped. Also chop a handful of the cilantro
stems and put aside


Tools --> A dutch oven, if you have one. We used a clay wok which also worked. You want to use something that will retain its heat so that you can simmer the stew at a lower temperature.

1. Marinade the fish steaks with salt, pepper, colorau de urucum and the juice from the lines. You can let the fish hang out while you chop the veggies. About 1- 2 hours (if you have the time)

2. Heat the pot on the stove top and then add the olive oil and palm oil. Add the chopped garlic and the handful of chopped cilantro stems. This is going to infuse the oil with all that flavour and your kitchen is going to smell AWESOME :)

3. Being careful not to let the garlic burn, layer about half the fish steaks on top of the frying garlic and then layer about half the chopped vegetable mixture on top of the fish, then another layer of the veggies. Keep in mind that the number of layers you have depends on the size of your pot. Lower the heat to medium.


4. Add the tomato paste, and pimento de cheiro on top of your last vegetable layer. Cover the pot and do let simmer for 35 to 40 minutes. Don't mix anything, just let the fish and veggies get to know one another, undisturbed :)

5. By this time, your house is going to smell like a sea side restaurant and your guests mouths are going to be watering. Carefully add the coconut milk and sprinkle the top of the dish with all that chopped cilantro. Remember to taste for salt before taking the pot to the table!

6. Serve with rice, more fresh cilantro and Pirao de Peixe (recipe yet to be written and posted)

Figs!

I grew up eating dry figs, and always liked them, and naively thought that that was just the way figs came; dry. It was on a family vacation to Portugal when I was a teenager that I first tasted a fresh fig. It was late August, and we were driving in the southern region of the country when my Dad suddenly stopped the car at the side of the road. He clambered up a bit of a hill and exclaimed that it was a fig tree full of fruit. Never being one to say no to food, I got out of the car and joined him on the fill where he handed me my first fresh fig. Since then, I have always associated figs with warm weather and warm climate, that is until last fall.
It was the beginning of September and I went to pay rent to my Sicilian landlord. He and his wife were both outside and showed me their garden which included a massive fig tree! I was completely blown away. He was equally blown away by the fact that I recognized a fig tree and liked fresh figs. His wife then picked me a basket of them and when I arrived at my parents that afternoon with them , my Dad had a fit...in a good way.
Last week, my land lady knocked on my door asking when I wanted to come and pick up my figs...I guess living in a small town does have it's benefits :)

Back to Blogging

Hi all,

So I've taken a bit of an hiatus during the summer months. It wasn't really planned, but as the weather became warmer, so did my apartment, and cooking in a hot apartment is, well, very hot. In any case, it's not that I've stopped thinking about the blog, or food for that matter, in fact I would say that I've been doing a lot of food related things, but just not posting.
I've been keeping busy with other food related things....I taped a cooking demo. You can check it out on YouTube I have to give props to my friend Marco Raffa, an aspiring filmaker/producer/tv guy, who found me a place to shoot the (3) part demo as well as edit the whole thing....THANKS MARCO! You can check out his portofolio of videos through the link above...happy viewing :)
I've also been traveling a bit...Toronto (Summerlicious @ Bymark....VERY good), Stratford (Theatre, Dining and picnics by the river), Simcoe (Cherry Picking), British Columbia (Sushi!!!) and of course in and around my neck of the woods for the usual sort of thing.
I've kept taking photos of good meals I've had or things that have struck my fancy with the intent of posting them all eventually. Well I guess all it took was the endless 'Back to School' commercials to get me off my duff and back to blogging....so I am officially back and will try to keep up with as best I can.
Come back soon and be sure to leave your comments and questions.
Oh and I've added a few photos below to prove that the 'Curly Cook' never stops thinking about food and blogging :)
Seared Ahi-Tuna at Bymark (by Mark McEwan) during Summerlicious in Toronto

View of the Avon River from our picnic table at Stratford on Father's Day.


Posing with a very full sour cherry tree on Tio Tony's Farm in Simcoe
Sushi House Takeout, Vancouver, B.C.

Sushi Lesson, as promised

So I promised a sushi post, and here it is. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, but that is probably because I had a good teacher (Thanks Clarence!). I made a night out of it, and invited some people from work too. It ended up being A LOT of fun and great way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter. I should probably mention that we only made California Rolls, using veggies and cooked fish since I didn’t want to be blamed for a half a dozen cases of possible food poisoning. It was still yummy, especially since we all made it, and besides it’s better than what you can buy here, which is no sushi at all.

So onto the sushi lesson…Clarence, being the organized person he is, gave me a list of equipment and food I would need to make my inaugural sushi night a success. Here’s what you should have before you start:

Equipment:

- rice cooker

-bamboo mats (to roll the sushi)

- sharp knives

- cutting board

- big bowl

- wooden spoon and/or spatula

Food Stuff:

- short grain calarose rice

- nori (dried and roasted seeweed paper)

- rice vinegar

- sugar

- avocado

- large carrot

- English cucumber

- cooked jumbo shrimp (tails removed)

- crab meat (or imitation crap meat)

- other cooked fish (i.e. smoked salmon, canned salmon…be creative!)

- pickled ginger

- tube of wasabi

- block of cream cheese (goes really well with the smoked salmon)

Optional: sesame seeds, sesame oil, mayo.

Instructions:

First things first, rinse your rice a few times and get it in your rice cooker. You’ll need about 2 cups of rice to make about 4 sushi rolls, which, depending on how thick you cut, will work out to approximately 6 pieces of sushi per roll (~ 24 pieces of sushi in total)

In the meantime, you can start julienning all the vegtables. For the cucumbers that means, cut them in half (long wise), then cut them longwise again (into quarters) and then cut longwise a third time (into eighths). It’s the same idea with the advocado; cut it longwise and carefully remove the stone and skin. Then cut it longwise into eighths or sixteenths if you can. The carrots are the most work since you want to end up with carrot pieces the thickness of matchsticks. Just make sure you have a very sharp knife and no where to go in a hurry! Here’s a link with an animated tutorial http://makemysushi.com/carrot.html

Next, in a large bowl mix a tbsp. of rice vinegar, a few splashes of sesame oil and a few pinches of sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved, add abuot 1/3 of the cooked rice and mix well. You want to coat the rice with the mixture and then spread the rice onto the sides of bowl (using your wooden spoon) so that it cools.

Next take once bamboo roll and place one sheet of nori in the middle of it. Now take a heaping spoonful of the rice and place it in the middle of the nori and spread it evenly.

Now you add whatever you want in the roll on top of your rice. In this case, it looks like cucumber, advocado, carrots, strips of cream cheese and smoked salmon.

Now for the rolling. Take the bamboo roll, while holding the stuff on top of the rice, roll the whole thing into a long tube, being sure to tuck one end of the roll under the other. Once you have a roll, start compressing the roll so that the ‘insides’ stay inside. The trick is to be as uniform as possible when applying pressure. Be patient, it does take practice!

Now its just a matter of cutting the roll and dipping it in some good soy sauce and wasabi.

Here’s another link that will show you an animation of how to roll http://makemysushi.com/how_to_make_sushi.html