How about adding a Brazilian touch to your Christmas dinner? We will help you, highlighting local ingredients and recipes that are good for tropical weather. Check this extensive menu with classics like farofa and salpicão salad and authoral recipes from the chef Ana Luiza Trajano such as shrimp in crunchy baskets and pumpkin salad with pupunha and molasses vinaigrette. And merry Christmas!
See also:
7 farofas for year-end holidays
4 recipes using raisins
Salpicão (Chicken salad), potato salad, roasted duck with red cabbage, filled chicken, chocolate pavê , french toast
Coalho cheese with molasses
10 portions
Ingredients:
1,6 kg coalho cheese (typical curd cheese)
0,1 kg sugarcane molasses
0,1 l olive oil
45 wood barbecue sticks cut in half
Directions:
Cut the cheese in rectangles of 4,5 cm height, 2 cm length and 1,5 cm thick. Grill all sides.
Preparation:
Before serving, skewer each piece of cheese and top them with molasses.
Shrimp shell with dendê’s farofa
10 portions
Ingredients for shrimp cream
1,3 kg small Brazilian shrimp
100 ml heavy cream
0,1 kg onion
0,1 kg peeled tomatoes
20 g garlic
3 Brazilian red peppers
1 bay leaf
1 bunch of thyme
100 ml olive oil
200 g spring onion
200 ml dendê (palm oil)
Salt and pepper
Ingredients for dendê’s farofa:
4 kg manioc flour
1 l dendê (palm oil)
600 g onion
200 g garlic
Salt and pepper
Ingredients for the “shell”:
2 packs of filo pastry
0,5 kg butter
Directions:
For the shrimp cream:
Cut the shrimp in small pieces and saute them in palm oil with the chopped onion and the garlic. Let release some water and add the fresh mashed tomatoes. In another pan, boil the heavy cream with the bay leaf, the thyme and the Brazilian red peppers. Then mix the two parts, add salt and pepper, let it boil until it becomes a thick cream and add some more chopped red pepper.
For dendê’s farofa:
In a hot pan, put the palm oil to saute the garlic and the onion, add the manioc flour and let it get a crunchy texture. Add salt in the end.
For the filo shells:
Open 1 sheet of filo pastry, spread butter on it then add another sheet on top of it. Use a curling ring to cut circles of dough, add more butter to it and place them into pie molds. Bake it at 180oC for 2 or three minutes, until it gets crunchy.
Assembly:
Heat the shrimp cream, fill the shells and cover them with dendê’s farofa. Garnish with spring onions.
Pumpkin salad with pupunha hearts of palm and molasses vinaigrette
10 portions
Ingredients for the salad:
200 g cress
200 g sliced pumpkin
200 g pupunha hearts of palm
400 g sliced Canastra cheese
Salt and pepper
Ingredients for molasses vinaigrette:
200 ml balsamic vinegar
100 g sugarcane molasses
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
Ingredients for parsley and spring onion pesto
50 g parsley
50 g spring onion
200 ml extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Directions
Salad:
Mix all the ingredients and season with green leaves pesto, salt and pepper.
Molasses dress:
Heat the balsamic vinegar in a pan until it reduces to a third of the original volume. Let it cool, add the molasses and blend it, drizling olive oil slowly. Season with salt and pepper.
Parsley and spring onion pesto:
Blend all the ingredients until smooth.
Assembly:
In a bowl, place the dressed salad, the molasses and garnish with the slices of Canastra cheese.
Roast turkey stuffed with giblets farofa and Brazil nuts
10 portions
Turkey ingredients:
1 turkey with around 4 kg
300 g celery
300 g leak
100 g onion
100 g carrot
0,5 l white wine
200 ml molasses
100 ml water
Salt and pepper
Farofa ingredients:
250 g coarse corn flour
300 g raisins
200 g candied fruit
300 g butter
600 g peru giblets
500 g cashew nuts
500 g Brazil nuts
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Turkey:
Cut the greens in small pieces and use them to season the turkey. Add salt, pepper and the wine and let it marinate for 12 hours.Stuff the turkey with the Brazil nuts farofa and close it with a string. Roast it at 180°C for one hour and 40 minutes. Before serving, grease with a mix of molasses and water and serve with the farofa.
Nuts farofa:
Saute the onions and the giblets in butter, add the nuts, the corn flour and toast it in medium heat. Add the raisins and reserve it.
Assembly:
Garnish a plate with banana tree leaves and serve the turkey with nuts farofa.
Brazil nuts farofa:
10 portions
Ingredients:
250 g coarse corn flour
300 g raisins
200 g candied fruit
300 g butter
600 turkey giblets
500 g cashew nuts
500 g Brazil nuts
500 g baru nuts
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Saute the onions and the giblets in butter, add the nuts, the corn flour and toast it at medium heat. Add the raisins and reserve it.
Pork loin roasted in its juice
10 portions
Ingredients:
4 kg pork loin
200 g celery
200 g leek
200 g onion
100 g carrot
2 bunches of thyme
100 ml white wine
3 l water
100 g butter
500 ml corn oil
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Dice the veggetables. Season the pork loin with the vegetables, salt, pepper and the wine and let it marinate for 12 hours. In a pan, at high heat, add oil and sear the pork loin in all its sides. Reserve it. In the same pan, put the vegetables from the marinade, let it golden, add the liquid and the seared pork loin. Add water little by little, let it cook for two hours at low heat, until the meat is softened.
For the sauce:
Sieve the vegetables from the broth in which the tenderloin has cooked. Let it reduce until very thick, add the butter to glaze.
Assembly:
Cut the pork loin in thin slices moisten with its own juice and serve it with Christmas rice.
Christmas rice
10 portions
Ingredients:
1kg cooked rice
100 g cashew nuts
100 g baru nuts
100 g Brazil nuts
100 g candied fruit
100 g raisins
200 g butter
50 g chopped garlic
100 g chopped onion
100 g chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Cook the rice in your tradicional way and reserve it. Stir fry the onion and the garlic in butter, add the nuts and the other ingredientes and finish with salt and pepper. Spread parsley all over it and serve.
Coconut pudding with cashew syrup
6 portion
Ingredients for the custard:
1 l milk
300 g sugar
200 g dried coconut
500 ml coconut milk
5 egg yolks
100 g cornstarch
Ingredients for the syrup:
1 kg of fresh cashew
1,5 l cashew juice
200 g sugarcane molasses
1 stick of cinnamon
1 clove
2 bay leaves
50 ml ginger juice
20 g mint leaves
Directions:
Pudding:
In medium heat, mix all the ingredients till it thickens. Turn off the heat, pour in a tube cake tin and let it cool down in the fridge for 4 hours.
Syrup:
In medium heat, heat the juice, the molasses, the cinnamon and the clove and reduce it to half of the volume. Low the heat, add the small pieces of the fresh cashew and, finally, the ginger juice and the mint leaves. Reserve it.
Assembly:
Cut the custard in slices and pour the syrup over it.
Milk pudding with nuts and vanilla syrup
9 portions
Ingredients for the pudding:
300 ml condensed milk
300 ml whole milk
4 eggs
100 g sliced Brazil nuts
100 g sliced cashew nuts
Ingredients for vanilla syrup:
300 ml whole milk
200 g sugar
20 g cornstarch
100 ml heavy cream
2 vanilla beans or 40 ml vanilla essence
Directions:
Pudding
Blend all the ingredients. Pour it in a tube cake tin and take to a preheated oven at 120ºC in a water bath for 30 minutes or so.
Syrup:
Put all the ingredients in a pan at medium heat, stirring constantly. Take out the vanilla beans and save it. Add the heavy cream. Let it cool and serve it with the milk pudding.
