Brazilian
Carne de Sol (Lightly Salted, Air-Dried Beef)
Beef from northeastern Brazil, cut into thick slabs, salted lightly and dried briefly under cover where the air moves. The name means "sun meat", but it is kept out of the sun. Only the outside dries; the inside stays moist, so it goes straight to the grill or the pan without soaking.
Galinhada (One-Pot Chicken and Rice with Pequi)
One-pot chicken and rice from Goiás and Minas Gerais in central Brazil. The chicken is browned, onion, garlic and tomato go into the same pot, the rice is fried in the fat, and then the water goes in. The yellow comes from annatto (colorau). In Goiás it is cooked with whole pequi fruits, whose stones are covered in thin, tough spines, so the pulp is scraped off gently with the teeth. Never bite into one.
Paçoca (Pressed Ground Peanut Candy)
A Brazilian peanut candy. Roasted peanuts are ground with sugar, stopped the moment their oil comes out and a squeezed handful holds, and pressed hard into a mould. There is no honey, no syrup and no water; the only binder is the peanuts' own oil. So the grind has an edge on each side: short of it nothing holds, past it you have peanut butter. The name comes from a Tupi word for "to crumble", and crumbling in the mouth is the point.
Goiabada (Guava Paste Firm Enough to Slice)
Brazil's guava paste. Guava is cooked, sieved and stirred down with sugar for the best part of an hour, and poured into a mould it cools into a block you cut with a knife. No gelatine and no agar go in: what sets it is the guava's own pectin. It began in colonial Brazil as a stand-in for quince marmelada, and eaten with a slice of Minas cheese the pair is called Romeo and Juliet.
Feijão Tropeiro (Beans Tossed with Toasted Cassava Flour, Bacon and Egg)
A bean dish from Minas Gerais: cooked beans tossed with egg and kale in the fat left from frying bacon and sausage, with toasted cassava flour added last to take up all the fat and the bean liquid in the pan. The flour has already been toasted and needs no more cooking, so it works the instant it goes in, turning a bean dish with liquid into one with none. The name comes from the muleteers of seventeenth-century Brazil.
Bolo de Rolo (Guava Roll Cake of Paper-Thin Layers)
Brazil's roll cake: butter sponge spread paper-thin and baked, brushed with melted goiabada (guava paste), and rolled tight, sheet after sheet, until the cut face shows dozens of thin layers in a spiral. The sheets have to be thin enough to count and still bend rather than crack, and the goiabada is melted to spread and then sets again in the fridge to hold the layers together.
Quindim (Coconut Yolk Custard with a Glassy Top)
A small Brazilian custard of egg yolks, sugar, grated coconut and melted butter, baked in a water bath in a mould buttered and sugared, then turned out so that a coconut layer carries a shining yellow top. Crème brûlée disperses its yolks in cream and crème caramel in milk; quindim has no liquid to disperse them in at all. So in the oven the mixture parts into coconut and yolk, and one bake comes out as two layers.
Pato no Tucupi (Duck in Tucupi with Jambu)
The duck dish of Belém, in the Brazilian state of Pará: duck roasted, then simmered in yellow tucupi and finished with jambu, a leaf that makes the mouth tingle, with rice and cassava flour alongside. Tucupi is the juice wrung out of grated cassava when that flour is made. Elsewhere that liquid is thrown away; here it is settled to drop its starch, fermented, and boiled until the poison is gone, and it becomes the broth.
Brigadeiro
Brazil's beloved party sweet: condensed milk cooked down with cocoa and butter, rolled into balls and coated in chocolate sprinkles. Just a few ingredients for a birthday-party classic.
Coxinha (Fried Chicken Croquette)
The chicken croquette in every Brazilian bakery. What decides it is not the filling but the dough: flour stirred into the broth the chicken was cooked in and cooked over the heat until it comes together, so the starch is already gelatinised and it can be pressed thin without tearing or bursting in the oil. Made with water instead of that broth, it becomes a different thing on the spot.
Pao de Queijo (Cheese Bread)
Crisp outside and chewy inside, these Brazilian cheese breads are made from tapioca starch and cheese. Naturally gluten-free with no wheat flour, you just mix, roll, and bake — a Brazilian breakfast and snack-time staple.