In the south of Brazil they call it ‘Amedoim Pim-Pim’, in Rio we call it ‘Torradão’… I’m open for suggestions for an English name. They’re peanuts covered in a crust of sugar and chocolate. This is my first attempt at making them and I’m 80% happy so far. Still need to improve the technique so I can get even more sugar and chocolate to stick to the peanuts.
This is actually a Brazilian recipe with a difference. To make it a little healthier and tastier, I added some ‘Linwoods Milled Flaxseed, Cocoa & Berries‘ powder to it. Why? you may ask. Well, it’s part of our FoodBloggerConnect.com challenge, and also because…
“A daily 30g serving is high in Flavanols which are highly effective antioxidants. A source of Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, Selenium & Omega 3 (…) is specially processed to provide a high level of Flavanols & 75% reduced fat as compared to the Cocoa in dark chocolate products.”
Doesn’t that sound delicious? Ok, it doesn’t really but I was sure that with the right amount of sugar I could make it into a really more’ish treat.
So here’s the recipe for ‘Sugar and Chocolate encrusted peanut’ or Amendoim Pim-Pim:
*It’s rare to find popular Brazilian recipes which contain real coco powder. Most of the country is happy enough using ‘Nescau’ which is the local name for ‘Nesquick’. Ah, don’t worry about the Flaxseed if you don’t have any. The usual recipe does not use it anyway.
HOW TO PREPARE:
Add the sugar and the water to a large pan or wok and let it simmer until it forms a clear syrup.
Add the peanuts and chocolate powder and start stirring
Lower the fire and continue stirring until the mixture starts glueing together and you can start seeing the bottom of the pan.
Sprinkle the baking powder over the mixture. It will start frothing and the sugar will start to crystalise
Add the Milled Flaxseed, Cocoa & Berries whatchmejig, and continue stirring
Tip the whole gunk into a deep oven tray and put it in the oven at 150c.
Bake in the oven for another 20 mins stirring it occasionally
Remove from the oven and let it cool. When it cools down the nuts should be nice and covered in the mixture and be nice and crunchy
Serve in little paper cones** or store in an air tight jar for those lonely rainy afternoons.
** I’m using bits torn out of my large stock of JungleDrums Magazine. Which is not only a great read but its beautifully designed pages add more Brazilianess to it.
In Rio we call this Banana Pie but pies usually take some kind of flour, so let’s say this is a Banana dessert. This dish is a 3 teared dessert: a bottom layer of caramelised banana, a layer of custard and a topping meringue. Of all the desserts Célia, my mom’s cook, makes this is by far my favourite. Unfortunately it has a bujillion calories and I just can’t seem to have only one slice of it. So, even though Célia likes to please me by making it, I beg her not to do it more than once a month.
Doing this recipe in Brazil has one advantage. There are so many types of Banana here! Prata, Ouro, D’água, Nanica, etc. For this recipe Célia used Banana D’água, which is big and firm but also soft and really sweet and tasty.
This time I decided that maybe a good way of allaying the anxiety of not being able to have this again for years would be to film it for the site. This way I could record not only the ingredients but the tiny little nuances of cooked the bananas have to be or how stiff the custard or meringue should get.
I’m also testing out my new Canon 550D video enabled DSLR camera and trying out different lens on it. If you’re into this kind of thing there’s a full tech blurb below.
So with no further ado. Here’s Célia’s Brazilian Banana Dessert Recipe:
INGREDIENTS:
FOR THE BANANA LAYER
2.5 cups of caster sugar (for the syrup)
6 medium ripe bananas
half a cup of water
extra half a cup of boiling water in case syrup is too thick
FOR THE CUSTARD LAYER
1 tin of condensed milk (400ml)
600ml of milk (full or semi-skimmed)
The yokes of 4 medium eggs
2 heaped tbsp of corn flour (corn starch)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tsp of butter
FOR THE MERINGUE LAYER
The whites of 4 medium eggs
8 level tbsp of caster sugar
The zest of half a lime
PREPARATION METHOD:
Add the sugar and water to a deep frying pan or shallow pan on a medium flame. Stir the water and sugar together while avoiding letting the sugar splash on the sides of the pan.
While the sugar is browning, peel and chop the bananas into large chunks (approx 1 inch).
Once the sugar a deep golden colour (darker than Golden Syrup), you may wish to add another half a cup of boiling water to thin the solution a bit.
Add in the bananas and turn them gently with a fork to ensure they are cooked on all sides. In a few minutes they should be cooked through and a nice dark brown colour all over. You can switch the fire off and pour them into a shallow pie dish (a glass one is ideal) and set it aside to cool.
While the banana mixture is cooling it’s time to prepare the custard level. Pour a tin of condensed milk into a pan (make sure to scrape the whole content of the can into the pan).
Use the condensed milk tin as a measuring cup and add 1.5 tins fulls of milk.
Separate the whites and yokes of 4 eggs. Sieve the 4 yokes into the custard mixture (This removes some of the membrane which form the yoke and removes the strong eggy taste yokes usually have. So don’t scrape the bottom of the sieve too strongly).
Add 2 heaped table spoons of corn flour to the milk, condensed milk and egg yoke mixture and whisk it in until fully dissolved.
Bring the custard mixture to the stove over a high flame and stir constantly until it forms a thick custard.
Remove from the heat and add a teaspoon of vanila extract and a teaspoon of butter. Stir well and gently ladle over the layer of banana on the pie dish. Try to make the layer the same thickness all around the dish. Set it aside to cool.
Preheat the oven at 220 degrees C.
Beat the egg whites into hard peaks and add xx spons of caster sugar + the lime zest to make a think meringue.
Spoon the meringue on top of the custard layer and spread well. Use a the spoon to make small peaks in the meringue.
Place it into the hot over for 15mins to slightly brown and cook the meringue. Watch it does not overcook.
Your Banana Meringue Dessert is ready. It can be eaten hot or cold. If eating it cold let it cool at room temperature before putting it in the fridge.
[learn_more caption="Shooting info and behind the scenes"]I shot this clip with my new Canon 550D, using a 50mm Canon Prime lens. I used on special focus pulling device and decide that my Zacuto Z-finder was totally useless for this type of shooting. I used MPEG Streamclip to turn all footage into Apple ProRes 422 (the vanilla kind) and edited the lot in FinalCut Pro 7.0.2.
Holding the camera still is quite difficult but I am convinced this style of close-up work goes well with some NYPD Blues style of nervous camera. Let me know what you think. I just can’t bring myself to buy some hugely expensive Zacuto or RedRock rigg until I’m a lot more experienced with the whole workflow and have put quite a few hours of shooting with these cameras under my belt. I’d prefer to spend money on prime lens. The clarity of the image these lens provide, combined with the 24p quality is just a complete game changer. I am definitely selling my big pro-sumer Sony camcorder.
The Zacuto Z-finder has been a bit of a disappointment for now. I’m shooting down in Rio, where is so damn hot the eye piece fogs straight away. I know you can get some anti-fog wipes for it (great! more money for Zacuto) but the whole thing about shooting food is that you have to move quickly (or stuff might burn), so there’s no time for a lot of kneeling, bending down or changing position. I actually felt that a better idea would be to get the JAG35 cage with a small monitor mounted on a ball joint so that I can twist the monitor to whatever angle I’d like nice and quick.[/learn_more]
No Brazilian kid’s party is complete without Brigadeiro. If you grew up in a Brazilian household these gooey chocolate truffles are by now permanently imprinted into our psyche and inhabit the same side of your brain as motherly love.
For this clip I recruited the help of some expert in Brigadeiro: KIDS! I know it’s child labour, but they didn’t seem to mind. The gorgeous looking children you can see here are my own (Olivia and Elvis) and Geoff and Tete’s kids (Laura and Ben). They were real stars! Especially Ben, who speaks with a very grown up ‘BBC presenter’ tone.
This Brigadeiro recipe could not be simpler and it should make around 20 truffles.
Brazilian Brigadeiro Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 Can of Condensed Milk
3 tbsp of Chocolate Drink Powder
2 tbsp of butter
To decorate: (any of these)
Chocolate Vermicelli
Grated coconut (fresh of dessicated)
Caster sugar
How to prepare:
Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat
Add the chocolate drink powder and butter and keep stirring your Brigadeiro mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan when you scrape it with your spoon. This is the only crucial bit to watch out for. As you scrape the bottom of your pan with the spoon, the Brigadeiro mixture should be thick enough to show you the bottom the pan for a couple of seconds before the mixture levels out again.
Pour the Brigadeiro mixture into a 5×3″ Glass or Ceramic container (a deep soup dish will work too) and leave your Brigadeiro aside to cool. When the Brigadeiro mixture is at room temperature, you may place it in the fridge. Where it can stay for 3 to 4 days until you’re ready to roll and serve them.
When you are ready to roll your Brigadeiros, remove the mixture from the fridge and scoop a small quantity (Brigadeiro size preferences vary wildly. I prefer mine a little smaller than golf balls).
To roll the Brigadeiro, spread a little butter in the palm of your hands, drop the dollop of Brigadeiro mixture in the palm of your hands and roll in between them until you have a smooth small ball.
Drop the Brigadeiro ball into a bowl containing your choice of topping and gently roll it around until it’s totally covered.
Transfer your Brigadeiro to a mini cupcake cup.
It’s quite customary to make Brigadeiros with several different toppings in each batch. Go wild!
After a long wait, here’s the first of the videos we shot in Rio in April 2008. This one features a delicious and incredibly simple Guava Soufflé which we learned from our visit to Senac’s Gastronomy Centre in Rio. Chef Luisa Pereira, our new found friend, took us through the step-by-step and gave us all the tips. So if you’re looking for a simple but truly Brazilian dessert recipe, this one is for you.
This is the first in the series of several clips shot in Rio. We are very grateful to TAP Portugal who flew us down to the Marvellous City in its brand new fleet. We definitely recommend them if you’re thinking of going to Brazil as they fly 67 weekly flights to 8 destinations in the country and are frequently more cost competitive than other carriers. Check out www.flytap.co.uk for prices, destinations and availability.
Music: The tracks in the clip are from Bottletop’s Sound Affects – Brazil. Bottletop is wonderful charity who use fashion and music to fund projects which have a positive impact on the health and well-being of young people world-wide. To find out more about their work, where to buy the CD and how to make a donation visit www.bottletop.org
The ‘chorinho’ track is by Choro na Feira, who will be featured in another of our clips.
This is a typical dessert you’d get in a Churrascaria. Papaya is known for having an enzyme called Papain (I know, scientists weren’t very imaginative there), which helps breakdown the fibers in red meat. It’s always prepared fresh, moments it’s brought to your table, so as to keep the papaya taste nice and fresh and Churrascarias will usually offer to drizzle some ‘Creme de Cassis’ liquor on it; which I personally thing it’s pushing the boat way too far. I like to keep mine nice and natural.
