At home and cooking in Curitiba

Newton’s masterpiece—an English roast dinner

A big bonus of going to Curitiba was the chance to stay with Eduardo and his family in the Italian district of this city filled with people from all over the world.

By chance, we took this multiculturalism into the kitchen too.

Newton and his roast dinner

On our first full day in Curitiba, Newton, Eduardo’s father, made an English roast dinner with lots of delicious sides. It was a great meal, and the sort of thing you never get to have on an overland adventure (it’s not easy to make a roast over a gas burner).

We also had a starter of bread with Newton’s secret health sauce. It’s his grandmother’s recipe. An amazing sauce with just the right amount of spice and heat. I’m hoping to make him good on his offer to share the recipe if I promise not to give it to any other Brazilians. I promise.

The meal was topped off with a yummy chocolate dessert—brigadeiro—made by Eduardo’s sister, Cristina. This concoction of sweetened condensed milk, cocoa (or Nesquik) and chocolate sprinkles is very popular at kid’s birthday parties, although all the big kids at this party loved it too. Cristina’s batch was more like chocolate mousse without the sprinkles. I didn’t get a picture, but I know how to make it and will try it out at home.

Newton’s grandmother’s secret recipe for healthy sauce

Anyway, I wanted to repay this wonderful hospitality, so offered to make moqueca, a stew popular throughout Bahia and Espirito Santo, coastal states north of Rio.

Moqueca (also spelt muqueca) can be made with meat or seafood, and may (moqueca baiana) or may not (moqueca capixaba) include coconut milk. Many years ago, I was taught a recipe that calls for prawns and coconut milk.

Ken, who lived in Brazil for three or four years and who taught me the recipe, is a master of moqueca. I couldn’t quite remember all his recipe—it’s on the computer at home—so I winged it. The end result wasn’t nearly as good as Ken’s, but it was more than okay, and certainly nicer than any version of moqueca we have ordered in South American restaurants.

Making moqueca

The finishing touch was that I managed to find a key ingredient—Lee Kum Kee’s chilli garlic sauce—in Curitiba’s large food market.

We had another treat—pinhão—as a starter to our meal. Eduardo bought a big bag of them in the market. They are a sort of pine nut from the pinherio tree (an araucaria) and taste rather like a chestnut. Newton put them in the pressure cooker for about 30 minutes. You eat them by biting down on the base of the pod and letting the nut ooze forward into your mouth. I loved them. Poor John thought they were okay.

P.S. We’re stopping in New Zealand to visit Ken on our way home from this trip. I promise to get the exact recipe and post it here for everyone to enjoy. I must remember to ask Ken who taught him to make moqueca.

Ken has also given me a recipe for pão de queijo (cheese puffs). I’ll pass that on too when I get home.

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