makanandcomida

72 cows are currently gracing the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the art event Cowparade Brasil. This event first started in 1999 in Chicago and has since then been taken to 55 cities around the world. The life sized cows made of fibre glass, are designed and painted by local artist and on display until the 20th of december all over town. Afterwards they will be sold and proceeds will go to charitable organizations.

Walking the streets of Leblon and Ipanema yesterday, I came about 3 of the cows, that in their colorful design and different artistic realizations very much reminded me of the Berlin Bear sculptures on display in my home town.

Clockwork orange cow

USB stick cow

Love Rio cow

You can see all cows on display in Rio following this link:

http://www.cowparade.com.br/rio/galeria.php

But now to eating beef!

Recipe for superfast Sauerkraut with beef filet (for 4):

• 400g beef filet sliced into fine stripes
• 200g mushrooms sliced
• 2 shallots finely diced
• 700g canned choucroute/sauerkraut
• 500ml beef stock
• oil, salt, pepper, paprika
• cornichons
• sour cream

Fry the mushrooms and shallots in some oil or butter. Add the sliced beef filet and fry for 1 minute. Season with salt pepper and paprika. Add the choucroute and beef stock and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and allow to stand for 3 minutes.

Garnish with diced cornichons and fresh parsley and serve with a dollop of sour cream and fresh crusty bread or mashed potatoes.

German harty food goes modern and light!

I had a great cooking experience yesterday evening – learning how to take the already delicious Palm Hearts to new heights. I love Palm Hearts even just the way they are preserved and straight out the can and prepare them in a salad with tomato, avocado, sliced onions, a vinaigrette dressing and toped with fresh coriander.

But Brazil is one of the largest producers of Palm Hearts, besides Costa Rica, so we are lucky not only to get the canned varieties but as well the fresh stuff. Please make sure to by the sustainable once to avoid cutting underaged trees and poor working conditions!

We worked both with fresh and preserved Palm Hearts in our cooking class yesterday.

Oven roasted fresh Palm Hearts with herbed butter (for 2)

• 300-400 g of fresh Palm Hearts, you can use canned nice large once
• 100g salted butter
• 1 garlic clove pressed
• handfull of fresh herbs very finely chopped
• capers
• ciabatta or other bread sliced
• olive oil, salt and pepper

Wrap the Palm Hearts in tin foil and roast in 200C oven for about 40-50 minutes (tinned once just drain). In a saucepan melt the butter, add the garlic, capers and the fresh herbs and over low heat allow to come together. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the bread with some olive oil and roast in the oven for some minutes. When the Palm Hearts are ready, remove, cut into wedges, drizzle with the herb butter and garnish with the toasted bread (the tinned once you can heat slowly in the butter) and some more fresh herbs. Great starter:

Palm Heart Cannelloni – a recipe that allow for lots of variations:

For two we used:

• 4 large canned Palm Hearts
• 4 sliced of mozzarella cheese
• 4 slices of ham
• 2 tbs of butter
• 2tbs flour
• 1 small finely diced onion
• 400ml milk and/or cream
• salt, pepper, nutmeg

Melt the butter in a saucepan and slowly fry the onion until soft. Add the flour, mixing very well, slowly add the milk while stirring very well to avoid any lumps. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and simmer until nice and creamy.

Roll the Palm Hearts into a slice of cheese and ham each, place in an ovenproof dish and top with the white sauce and some freshly grated parmesan. Bake in 200C oven for about 15-20 minutes and it looks like this:

I will try this recipe with Parma ham and a variation of cheeses such as gorgonzola or brie. But it makes a great hearty starter served with some fresh bread to scoop up the nice sauce. Enjoy!

From the yesterday market I also managed to get hold of these wonderful figs:

not the dried stuff that we were able to get our hands on in Malaysia, but large, fresh and succulent once that I love and that work extremely well in this lovely

Fig salad

• 4-6 ripe figs cut into quarters or smaller
• large bunch of rocket leaves
• 20 baby tomatoes halved
• 50g of capers
• 150g of parma ham
• lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper for the dressing

Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle with the dressing and you will end up with this:

The salad works well with any grilled meat and fish but I served it with

Oven roasted herbed salmon for 4

• 800g of salmon filet, skin off
• 500g of boiled baby potatoes skin on, halved
• handful of pitted black olives, halved
• handful of baby tomatoes, halved
• bunch of fresh coriander, basil and or dill
• juice from 2-3 limes and lime wedges for roasting
• dash of white wine
• olive oil, salt and pepper

In a large ovenproof dish place the salmon on a drizzle of olive oil to prevent from sticking. Arrange the potatoes, tomatoes and olives around the fish. Garnish with the torn up fresh herbs, a drizzle of olive oil and white wine, lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Arrange some slices of lime on top of the salmon and cover the dish in foil. Roast in 200C preheated oven covered for about 20 minutes and an additional 5 minutes uncovered. Easy to prepare some hours ahead and leave in the fridge until ready to roast.

Tonight I’m off for a cooking course on palm hearts (palmitos) another of my, but especially my kids favorites. So more on this tomorrow!

The week starts just the way I like it, with a visit to the small neighborhood market in Rua Vicente de Sousa in Botafogo.  After having been now a regular for the last months, I usually start the round with drinking a fresh Agua de Coco, a coconut water.

The great thing about all the local fresh markets to be found in every quarter of the city on different days of the week is that they all not only sell fresh fruits and vegetables but have fish stalls selling an abundance of the very best and freshest catch of the day ranging from large whole fishes to all kinds of cleaned seafoods (mariscos).

So Mondays usually is the day to prepare a dish with fresh fish or seafood. As today the temperature is finally climbing up towards 30 degrees and it seems that summer is well on its way I’m preparing Ceviche, marinated raw fish originally from Peru but great anywhere where you can get your hands on very fresh fish or seafood.

Ceviche as a starter for 4 persons

• 400g of very fresh firm fish – I like to use sole (linguado), salmon (salmao, monkfish (tamboril) prawns (camarao) octopus (polvo) and squid (lulas) or any combination of those cut in small cubes.
• 1 red onion finely diced
• 1 clove of garlic pressed
• 1-2 finely dice red chili
• 2-3 spring onions finely diced
• 1 red and green pepper finely diced
• handfull of small red tomatoes finely diced
• juice of at least 4 limes, around 80-100ml
• salt, pepper and bunch of fresh coriander for garnish

Forget Starbucks, this is the real coffee to go, served by a coffee walker:

Recipe for Caldo Verde, the soup originating from Portugal – super easy and yummy (for 4):

• 1 kg of potatoes peeled and diced
• 2 onions diced
• 3 cloves of garlic diced
• 1.5 l of chicken stock
• 250g chourico diced or sliced
• 500g kale, sliced very finely
• olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh coriander

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil, add the chicken stock and the potatoes and simmer until potatoes are soft. Puree the mixture until smooth, add shredded kale and chourico and simmer for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, serve with a drizzle of olive oil and some fresh coriander leaves.

This incredibly stunning view of Corcovado and Rio was captured by one of our neighbors yesterday:

The Kilo restaurant hype (os kilos) is something I had heard of before arriving in Rio but not really understood the fun of it. Going to a buffet style mainly lunch venue to choose and have the food weighted did not appeal to me at first. BUT after some month I must say the concept is not bad at all. For us newcomers it offers the chance to try a wide variety of different brazilian foods and ingredients without having to order a full plate of anything unknown and going out for food with kids gives them the chance choosing by eyesight which without speaking much portuguese yet is an advantage.

But a kilo is not a kilo as there a numerous varieties. There are the very large kilo restaurants with hundreds of seats that serve standard brazilian fare – lots of rice, beans, meat stews and some greens as well as all types of fried stuff. They look like large canteens or old day railway station restaurants. These are normally found downtown and next to large office complexes and popular for quick everyday office lunch – I skip those. Then there is the smaller, family run kilo with “comida caseira” – homemade cooking, consisting of daily varying home cooked meals, fresh salad buffet and desserts. We have one very near to our home, Maricotinha (I’m still trying to find out what that means), that we often frequent. There the food is just as you would imagining the brazilian avozinha (grandmother) cooking and some of the older ladies in the kitchen look just that. The ambience of the restaurant is casual but far from being modern or trendy and that’s why I come to the third category of  kilo restaurants. These are the sleek, lofty, modern kilos that are more and more emerging , serving high end, healthy, often organic buffet style food with a large variety of great salads, ranging from lentils with beetroot and feta, to quinoa with squid as well as all kinds of often asian and/or italian inspired dishes. Today I had lunch at biscui restaurante  in Copacabana – recommended and yummy! Prices at the kilo vary significantly from 2 Reais (1EUR amount to 2.4 Reais today) per 100g to 8 Reais.

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Today I went to my favorite small market place in our neighborhood – Cobal de Botafogo. A place that sells fresh fruit and fish, has a couple of great wineshops and Delis and the best place to buy small middle eastern delicacies such as Kibe. Kibe is Brazil’s most popular arab snack that you can buy nearly in all bar de sucos (juice bars serving a huge variety of freshly squeezed juices and salgados (fried or baked snacks)).

Kibe is traditionally made out of beef and bulgur wheat but can be found with lots of different meats today. Her comes the standard recipe:

You will need:

• 200g of bulgur wheat (in Brazil it is called trigo para Quibe, Perlweizen for my German friends)
• 500g of minced beef
• 700 ml of boiling water or stock
• 2 large finely chopped onion
• 1 pressed clove of garlic
• 1 bunch of fresh mint finely chopped
• nutmeg, salt and pepper
• Oil for frying

Soak the bulgur wheat for some 30-40 min in the hot stock or water. Drain should there remain excess liquid after that period. In the meantime fry the 1 diced onion and garlic in some olive oil, add half of the minced meat and brown. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and fresh mint.

In a food processor mix with the remaining onion, raw minced meat and drained bulgur wheat. Shape around 30 tear drop like kibes and fry in hot oil for around ten minutes or bake in 200 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Serve drizzled with fresh lime juice. Great as a pre-dinner snack with a cold beer or caipirinha!

Welcome to my food blog featuring the Bahasa Malay and the Portuguese and Spanish name for food.

I just love food, reading cookbooks and even more eating itself!

As for me the most important part of eating with family and friends is about being together and talking to each other. The food served should provide the perfect background for this whether it is a dinner for two, a relaxed evening with some good friends or a larger or more formal occasion. But the preparation of food should never prevent the cook from taking part in the entertaining! therefore my favorite recipes are all easy to compile, leaving myself enough time to enjoy the guests.

I have never learned to cook professionally but from an early age my parents made sure that I would know the basics. As a student having to provide for myself I soon found my inspiration from reading loads of cookbooks and experimenting. Moving to Uganda in the 90s, a place where at that time you hardly could buy anything ready-made or preserved but with an abundance of fresh ingredients, I really started to learn and love cooking. Eating my way around the different places we have stayed ever since has just widened the friends met, the nice meals shared, the ingredients used and the cookbooks collected.

After leaving Malaysia and the delicious South East Asian Makan in the middle of this year behind, moving across half the world to Rio de Janeiro, I hope to provide you with a wide range of new culinary experiences and comida tipica from Brazil and the Latin American continent.

The recipes are all inspired of nice lunches, dinner and parties with friends were the food served provided the perfect setting. This compilation would not be possible without all the good food and ideas friends provided me with. Please continue!