Carne Gizado (Stewed Meat & Vegetables

• 3-4 lbs. cubed meat, pork or beef
• 4-5 white potatoes
• 3 lbs. mandioca root
• 3 medium white yams
• 3 green bananas
  
  

Trim off excess fat, season and marinate meat overnight with salt, garlic, vinegar, bay leaf, and pepper. Peel and cut up potatoes, yams, mandioca, and green bananas. In a pot, cook meat with marinade and 3 onions with 1/2 cup cooking oil on low heat until medium done. Add all vegetables to meat and cover with water. Cook on low until vegetables cook. Season with salt, garlic, bay leaf, paprika, and pepper.

Caldo De Peixe (Fish Soup)

• 6 white potatoes
• 3 sweet potatoes
• l bunch fresh parsley
• l green pepper
• l red pepper
• 3 medium onions
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 4 scallions
• 3 lbs. fresh, whole, cleaned saltwater fish (examples: tautog, cod, bluefish or sea bass).

In a large kettle, gently saute chopped onions, tomatoes, scallions and green and red peppers in oil. Next, add fish cut into small pieces and water. Cover and bring to a gentle boil. Add peeled potatoes and chopped parsley to kettle. Reduce heat and simmer. A little may be added to make a thicker broth.

Cachupinha

• 5 ears fresh corn (or fresh off cob)
• 1/5 lb. (100 g.) linguica (Portuguese smoked sausage),
  sliced 1/4 squash
• 1/2 lb. (1/4 kg.) fava beans, (or lima beans) fresh or dried
• 2 ripe tomatoes (or equivalent tomato paste)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 peppercorns
• 1 bunch of flat leaf coriander
• 1 large onion, sliced

Scrape off the fresh corn kernels into a boiler pot. Gently saute onion, linguica, and pepper in olive oil. Add to the corn the rest of the ingredients and a sufficient amount of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer. Prior to serving, season with salt and garnish with chopped flat leaf coriander (cilantro).

Cachupa Rica

• 4 cups of beaten corn
• 200 gr of beaf meat
• 200 gr of bacon 4 sausages
• 2 American potatoes
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Salt and paprica at will
• 200 gr of dry beans
• 300 gr of pig trotter
• 2 big potatoes
• 2 mandioche
• 200 gr of Savoy cabbage
• 2 laurel leaves
• oil at will

Put meat chops, bacon, a pig trotter and sausages in a pot, together with garlic, oil, laurel, onion, paprica, salt;it takes three hours to become tasty.

Corn and beans boil half an hour in a pot with water, together with an onion, oil, a laurel leaf and a pintch of salt.After that, put beans and corn in a bigger pot with water and let them boil. Then add the meat. When all ist almost ready, add potatoes and cabbage. When it is completely cooked, let it stand for a while and then it is ready to be served.

CACHUPA RICA

• 4 c. samp (hominy)
• 1 c. kidney beans
• 1 c. large lima beans
• 1/2 c. shell beans
• whole chicken
• 2 lbs. spareribs (pork or beef)
• 1 chourico (garlic spicy sausage), sliced
• l blood sausage, when avallable, sliced
• 1/4 lb. lean bacon, diced
• 2 lbs. cabbage, chopped coarsely
• 2 lbs. tomatoes, quartered
• 2 lbs. green bananas, peeled and sliced
• 2 lbs. fresh yams, peeled and chunked
• 2 lbs. fresh sweet potatoes, peeled and chunked
• 2 lbs. hard winter squash, peeled and chunked (e.g. buttercup, butternut, hubbard etc.)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 2 bay leaves
• Flat leaf coriander

Soak the samp and beans overnight. In a stock pot, heat six cups of water. Add two tablespoons of olive oil, onion, garlic and bay leaf to water for seasoning. Bring to boil and add samp and beans. In a separate kettle, cook the vegetables except the tomatoes with the spareribs, chourico or linguica, blood sausage, and bacon. Next, cut up and season the chicken. Saute chicken in olive oil. Add tomatoes, and let simmer until samp and beans are almost folk tender but not quite done.

Add cooked vegetables and meats into stock pot. Cook on low heat for approximately one hour. About 20 minutes before the cachupa is done you may mix in well sauted onion, garlic and tomato paste mixture (sofrito) to adjust and enhance the flavor.

Turn off heat and let sit in the covered pot for at least one half hour before serving. Arrange meats and vegetables on a large serving platter and serve the corn and beans in a bowl.

Caldo De Peixe (soup of fish)

• Fish, moray grouper
• 1 onion
• 2 peeled tomatoes
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 laurel leaf
• 1 sage
• paprica at will
• flour
• 1/2 kg manioca
• 1 kg potatoes
• 1 kg American patatoes
• 1/2 kg yam
• 1/2 kg green bananas
• 1/2 kg pumpkin
• oil at will

Let the fish flavour together with garlic, oil, salt and laurel. Put the sliced onion, garlic, laurel, paprica, peeled tomatoes, sage and olive oil in a big pot. Let it brown and add chopped potatoes, bananas, manioca, yam (someting like a potato) and pumpkin. Let it flavour and let it boil. When all is almost boiled, add the fish.When it is ready, taste the broth: if it is too weak, then add a spoonful of flour, in order to make it jelly. You must mix it with a wooden spoon, so as not to let the soup adhere. The caldo de peixe may be seved with some rice, or with polenta, this is the way I like most.

Canja De Galinha

• 1 chicken rice
• 1 spoonolive oil
• 2 peeled tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 laurel leaf
• 1 garlic
• 1 sage leaf
• pimento at will
• salt at will

Chop the chicken and wash it in water and salt. Then put it in a pot and let it steep a night together with salt, garlic, onion, salt, oil, laurel. Put all to brown in a pot, add enought water in order to have a jelly broth of rice. When it is boiling, add peeled tomatoes and paprica.When it is too weak, make them jelly warming it up. The sicret is the right quantity of water and the quantity of rice you use. Serve in a big cup with sage and, if you like it spicy,add more pimento.

Canja (Thick Chicken Rice Soup)

• 1/2 whole chicken, cut up
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 3-4 chicken boullion cubes
• 1 c. short-grain white rice (may substitute long-grain)

Saute onions in oil. Next, add chicken pieces, boullion cubes and a sufficient amount of water. After bringing to a boil, add rice and stir occasionally. Simmer approximately 30-35 minutes, until desired consistency.

Coconut Candy

• 2 lbs. coconut
• 2lbs. sugar
• 1/4 burnt sugar or molasses
• grated lemons

Grate the coconut. Carefully brown the sugar but control for over burning. Then carefully combine coconut and burnt sugar to a little bit of water. Next, add 2 lbs. of sugar and cook. When the mixture is just about done, add lemon and mix. Remove from heat. Next, pound the mixture well for five minutes. Flatten on to buttered surface. Cut out into square or diagonal shapes. Let harden.

Jag (Jagacida)

• 1 medium onion
• 3 cups of rice
• 1 1 5 oz. can of beans (lima or kidney)
• salt, pepper and paprika
• 2 bay leaves frsh parsley
• 4 tablespoons of oil

Cut up onions in a 2 qt. pan and simmer until golden brown in oil (of choice). Add 6 cups of water to onions and season (to taste) with salt, pepper, paprika, bay leaves and parsley. Bring to a boil and add 3 cups of rice. Lower heat, add beans (of choice), cover pan and simmer for 25 minutes or until water is absorbed and rice is cooked. Turn off stove and let stand.

Serve with chicken, linguica or other meats.

Papaya Candy

• 2 1/2 lbs. firm papaya
• 2 lbs. sugar
• lemons

Cut the papaya into fine strips, then peel and wash well. Place the papaya and sugar on on a slow fire until the sugar dissolves. Cook for ten minutes, then set aside for a half hour. After a half an hour reheat at a higher flame, until the mixture becomes sugar-like or crystalized. Shortly afterwards remove from heat, and, using a spoon and fork, mold into different shapes.

Polvo A Modo Ze De Lino (Octopus Stew)

• 2 lbs. octopus (or squid)
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 tablespoons of oil
• 2 tomatoes or l tablespoon of tomato paste
• 2 cloves of garlic
• l onion
• 2 grains of hot pepper (or as much as you want)

Wash and cut octopus into small pieces. Place octopus in a pot with two bay leaves and 3 tablespoons of oil. Heat on medium. Allow octopus to cook for approximately 20 minutes. Add tomatoes, cloves of garlic, diced onion and hot pepper. Heat on medium low until stew-like. Stir occasionally.

Pudim De Queijo (Cheese Pudding)

• l lb. (1/2 kg) soft goat cheese (use freshest cheese possible)
• l lb. (1/2 kg) sugar
• 2 cups water
• 12 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites

Grate the cheese. Boil sugar in water to the consistency of a thick syrup. Add the cheese and mix well. Next, remove the mixture from heat and combine with beaten egg yolks and egg whites.

Sprinkle the bottom of a pan with burnt sugar. Pour in the mixture and bake in a double boiler. The latter may also be accomplished by placing the pan with the mixture into a pan filled with hot water. The mixture can also be baked in a shallow, buttered and floured baking pan.

Bake in the oven. After removed and cooled, cut into squares and top with granulated sugar.

Supida De Xerem (Ground Corn With Vegetables & Meat)

• 4 lbs. xerem (coarse ground corn)
• 2 butternut squash
• 20 kale leaves
• l lb. salted pork fat, diced
• 3 lbs. pork meat, in cubes
• 2 lbs. dry beans
• 4 medium onions

Preparation: Soak dry beans overnight in water. Wash in warm water and soak ground corn 2 hours before cooking with l quartered onion. Marinate and season pork meat overnight with salt, garlic, vinegar, bay leaf, and pepper. Cover dry beans and salted pork with water. Cook about one hour and a half or until medium done. Drain beans when cooked. Cut kale leaves into strips and boil until medum done in water. Drain kale leaves. Cook ground corn in water until medium done. Cut butternut squash and gut out seeds. Leave skin on and divide into about 6 pieces.

Cooking: In a large pot, layer the following ingredients: squash at the bottom first, skin side down. Then add the pork meat, kale, beans, cubed onions, ground corn. Spice with salt, garlic, bay leaf, pepper. Add 1/2 cup oil and 3 cups water. Cover with aluminum foil and pot cover. Cook on low flame for one hour and a half.