Saturday market in Laranjeiras and more great Caipirinha ideas

Today we finally made it to the small saturday market in Laranjeiras that our brazilian friends Vanessa and Erich had wanted to take us too since ages. The market is a real neighborhood affair, with old ladies buying their fruit, vegetable, flower and fish supply for the week, local artists selling anything from hippy art craft to clothes and the best of all food stalls selling freshly prepared snacks and drinks.

After strolling through the market and tasting some of the unknown fruits, we met up with Vanessa and Erich at the small square Praça Jardim Laranjeiras for some Pasteis – fried dough pockets filled with meat, ham and/or cheese, palm hearts among others

and some Bolinhos de Bacalhau. This stall has made it to carioca (people of Rio) fame and is featured in a book about favorite street vendor food!

I must say they were absolutely delicious and went very well down with the excellent Orange/Ginger Caipirinha we tried – another novelty so I watched carefully to be able to recreate next time at home!

Orange/Ginger Caipirinha

• 1 orange skin on cut into small pieces
• 1tsp of very finely cut ginger
• 1tbs of sugar
• 50ml of cachaça
• crushed or cubed ice

In the serving class crush the orange, sugar and ginger with a pestle or wooden spoon to dissolve the  juices in the sugar. Top with cachaça and crushed or cubed ice. Refreshing with a hint of heat from the ginger.

But the stall serving this had some more caipirinha with a twist recipes such as strawberry, pineapple/mint or pineapple/ginger and a mango one – so lots of reasons to go back to the market one of the next saturdays apart from listening and dancing to the live band playing there that unfortunately was canceled today due to rain.