coconut milk

square pumpkin pie all around!

by Jasmine Turner on May 18, 2012

Who says pies have to be round?

squaring the circle with vegan pumpkin pie

squaring the circle with vegan pumpkin pie

I was trying to make a pumpkin pie for a dinner party at Stevie’ and Hegui’s and discovered that I don’t actually own a round pie dish. So I used of a square pan instead! I knew it might look kind of odd but a pie is made in a pan so I reasoned it would be okay. And since this one is vegan, it seems perfectly natural to present it in a distinctive way. Suddenly necessity becomes meaningful and “just right,” which is so often the case with cooking, don’t you think?

Now you’re probably thinking, why in the world are you making pumpkin pie in May? Well, I bought some extra cans of pumpkin during the holiday season so I could enjoy pie out of “pie season.” Stores stop selling canned pumpkin this time of year, which can totally crimp your style.

The pie is unbelievably festive too with the addition of this vegan Cool Whip type stuff from Trader Joes. So, cheers to a non conventional themed square shaped pie not in pumpkin pie season!

My vegan crust is based on this recipe.

square pumpkin pie all around

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cold water
¼ cup vegetable oil
3 tbsp vegan butter
¼ tbsp salt
3 tbsp agave nectar or honey
1 can pure pumpkin
½ cup coconut or soy milk
1 tsp Trader Joes pumpkin pie seasoning or similar
More agave nectar for pumpkin mix

Pre heat oven to 450F.

Mix flour, cold water, vegan butter, salt and honey together until smooth and it forms a ball. Oil a square pan with veggie butter (oh, okay, round is fine too). Press out the dough to cover the bottom and sides of your pan. Bake crust for ten minutes until crispy on edges. Take it out and let it sit for a few minutes.

Mix pumpkin, coconut milk and the pumpkin pie seasoning together. Add agave nectar to sweeten to taste. Pour pumpkin mix onto pie crust and put back in oven for 35 minutes. Let cool for about a half hour or so.

When ready to serve whip out the Trader Joes vegan dessert whip and voila pumpkin pie right before summer!

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moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

by Heguiberto on January 27, 2012

Moqueca is a delicious fish stew traditional to the beautiful and sunny state of Bahia in Brazil. Seafood there is of excellent quality. In Bahia this dish is named moqueca but outside we call it moqueca baiana. I think I’ve actually been biased toward moqueca capixaba, a lighter version popular in the neighboring state of Espírito Santo, just to the south. Perhaps the reason is simply because I have a couple of dear friends who live in ES. In Bahia, one only eats moqueca Baiana; and in Espírito Santo, moqueca capixaba. Truly, both are delicious.

moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

Traditional moqueca baiana is made without paprika or shrimp paste. I decided to use these two alien ingredients for enhanced flavors and more color vibrancy. But this doesn’t make this a lesser a moqueca in any way. At times, Bahian foods remind me of South East Asian dishes or even things made in Louisiana. See here and here.

I purchased the dendê oil (palm oil) from the outrageously expensive Rainbow Foods Supermarket in San Francisco. It was Colombian, not Brazilian, but has an identical flavor. Actually, I had to go to several shops before I could locate it, so thank heavens for Rainbow. It was their last jar of the stuff.

I’ve had moqueca baiana many times but never actually made it at home, so this was a very exiting experience for me. I hope that you enjoy it as well.

some key ingredients for moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

some key ingredients for moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

my organic palm oil

my organic palm oil

moqueca baiana AKA Bahian fish stew

2½ lbs skinless thick pieces of wild caught ling cod, cut in ~6 inch steaks
½ lb medium sized wild caught shrimp; shelled, deveined and chopped
1 lb ripe heirloom tomatoes, skin removed, cut into chunks
½ bunch cilantro
4 scallions, green and white parts chopped
¼ cup coconut milk
2 tbsp dendê oil (palm oil)
¾ tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp shrimp paste (belakan)
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin rings
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into thin rings
1 white onion, diced small
2 limes
5 cloves garlic, crushed
Freshly ground black pepper
Kosher salt to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 red chili pepper, seeds and ribs removed, sliced thinly

Rinse fish in cold water; pat dry with paper towel. Place in a dish. Squeeze juice of 1 lime over it. Add equivalent of 3 cloves of garlic, followed by salt and a sprinkle of black pepper. Let it marinate for about ½ hour, in the fridge if too hot. In blustery San Francisco, I just let it chill on my kitchen counter.

Rinse shrimp in cold water; pat dry with paper towel. Place in a small bowl. Squeeze juice of second lime, add salt, black pepper, equivalent of one garlic clove, cover and let it marinate next to the cod fish.

Using a large and wide cooking pan, add dendê oil and onion. Bring temperature to high and cook for a few minutes just to sweat the onion, add remaining garlic, peppers, belakan, paprika, sprinkle with salt and pepper and stir everything together. Cover the pan and cook for about 3 minutes on high heat. Stir to avoid burning. Add tomatoes and cook until they collapse. Remove 1/3 of partially stewed vegetables to a bowl. Add fish steaks with juices to pan. Top with reserved stewed veggies. Cover and continue cooking vigorously on high heat for another 10 minutes. Carefully flip the fish half way through.

Uncover and scatter spring onion and ½ of the cilantro over fish followed by the shrimp with juices. Cook for another minute. Carefully mix in coconut milk and remaining cilantro. Adjust flavors with more salt and pepper if needed. Serve with white jasmine rice and extra wedges of lime.

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Thai tomato, coconut and Dungeness crab soup

by Heguiberto on September 5, 2011

Thai tomato, coconut and Dungeness crab soup

Thai tomato, coconut and Dungeness crab soup

I had this tomato soup at a dinner party recently. My boss, Elliot, hosted at his place. It was a fun evening filled with good chat, many delectable savory dishes and lovely wine! Thank you Elliot for being such a good cook and host! I wanted to ask for the recipe but didn’t get the chance as I had to leave a bit early to take care of our bully Clarence.

A few days later while browsing one of the latest issues of Bon Appétit magazine I found the recipe. Yoo-hoo! But then I misplaced it. Turns out they posted it online.

This past weekend we had our friends Jasmine and Prof. T over for dinner. I wanted to awe not only them but Steven too with this flavorful Thai inspired soup. Jasmine said “this is gourmet eating,” which is exactly what I said when I dined at Elliot’s, and it is. This soup really entices your palate with fragrant sweet and sour flavors and silky, creamy textures without being heavy or dense. This is definitely something that I will make again. And since tomatoes are in season now, I am already thinking of experimenting with different heirlooms to change the color: yellow, chocolate, green zebra varieties? If you can’t find crab, I am sure shrimp, or even lobster would do.

Thai tomato, coconut and Dungeness crab soup

3 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch scallions–approx 6– chopped fine, white and dark green parts included
2 stalks of fresh lemon grass, tough outer layer removed, sliced thinly
1 Serrano pepper, seeds partially removed, minced
2½ lb ripe tomatoes
½ cup light unsweetened coconut milk
1½ tbsp fish sauce
Juice of one lime or more, depending on how sour you like it, plus some lime wedges for garnish
Juice of one orange
½ lb fresh Dungeness crab meat
Kosher salt
½ cup pea shoots
1 clove garlic smashed

Bring a saucepan full of water to a boil. Meanwhile using a paring knife make a cross incision at bottom of each tomato, and cut the woody top off. Place them in boiling water until skin begins to curl. Drain, let cool a bit, remove skins and cube them. Set aside.

Place 2tbsp olive oil, scallions and lemon grass in a sauce pan. Sauté until scallions wilt. Add tomatoes and cook for about 8 minutes, long enough to bring it to a boil. Add coconut, orange juice, fish sauce and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool down for few minutes.

Add remaining olive oil to a skillet, followed by garlic. Sauté until aromatic. Add fresh crab. Turn heat off and cook for a minute. Sprinkle with salt, discard garlic clove. Set aside

Using a stick blender, wiz soup until puréed and smooth. Stir in lime juice. Add salt and more lime juice, if needed. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with Dungeness crab meat and pea shots. Have lime wedges on the side for the table.

Michele from the blog That’s so Michelle made the same recipe. Check it out here.

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sambal okra over coconut rice

by Heguiberto on July 22, 2011

And here’s another dish from the-Y-O, that’s Yotam Ottolenghi to you and me. This adaptation from “Plenty” was a huge success. The dish is South East Asian inspired, since it uses sambal sauce.

sambal okra over coconut rice

sambal okra over coconut rice

Sambal is a fiery sauce made with chili peppers, shallots, tamarind and other spices. The-Y-O claims that a dish like this is served in Malaysia for breakfast. “Wow” is all I can say, people and their cuisines sure can be different. This is spicy! I can’t imagine having it for breakfast. It reminds me of our trip to Thailand and Cambodia a few years ago. When we first arrived, the brutal jet lag had me hungry for spicy foods loaded with fish sauce in the morning. That’s standard fare there, so it worked out really well, at least at the beginning. Fried rice and fish soup at 7AM, no problem! I ate with gusto and it was all simply delicious! After a week or two, as I adjusted to the Thai clock, I began to have trouble with that kind of breakie.

I’ve made sambal before with calamari and shrimp, but didn’t think breakfast-time. We had this sambal okra for dinner, which is just fine by me. Really, it was so tasty that I’d be willing to have it anytime, including for breakfast… I bet this would be a super remedy for a hangover…

sambal okra over coconut rice

for the coconut rice:

1 cup basmati rice rinsed
½ cup coconut milk
1½ cups water
2 rinds of lemon
4 thin slices of fresh ginger
Kosher salt to taste

for the okra:

1 lb frozen baby okra
Lemon or lime wedges
Cilantro leaves for decoration

for the sambal sauce:

3 fresh Jalapeño peppers, seeds and ribs partially removed (leave some for heat)
5 dried red chili peppers, seeds discarded
8 baby shallots
2 garlic cloves
1tsp paprika
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp sugar
Kosher salt to taste

Add chilies fresh and dried, shallots, garlic, paprika, tamarind, sugar, 2 tablespoons of oil and another 2 of water to the food processor and spin until it turns into paste.

Place remaining oil in a large skillet on high. Pour paste in and sauté for a minute or so. Turn temperature down and cook it for about 10 minutes. The sambal sauce will be ready when it becomes dark brownish red in color and oil starts to separate from the paste. Set aside.

Place all rice ingredients in a saucepan on high heat. Give it a good stir. Bring to a boil. Stir again, reduce temperature to low, cover and cook until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat, keeping covered, and let rest for 8-10 minutes.

Have a pan ready with boiling water within the last 8-10 minutes rice is finishing cooking. Drop frozen okra into the water and cook 3-4 minutes to scald the little pods. Transfer okra to a colander and run some cold water over to stop cooking process.

Heat up sambal, fold in okra and let it warm through.

Transfer rice to a serving platter, top with sambal okra & decorate with cilantro leaves and wedges of lemon.

{ 11 comments }

Dungeness crab casquinha de siri

by Heguiberto on March 15, 2011

Casquinha de siri is super popular in Brazil, mainly in coastal towns where you get fresh crab aplenty. Brazilian crabs are tiny compared to the gigantic Dungeness from the North American Pacific Rim. Really, they look more like blue crabs from the Northeastern U.S. Big or small, these sometimes scary but always amazing and tasty prehistoric creatures are the ticket for living the highlife. Check out this post to learn more about preparing live Dungeness crab. What an experience!

Dungeness crab casquinha de siri

Dungeness crab casquinha de siri

To make traditional Brazilian casquinha de siri, the crab is boiled, then the meat is extracted, seasoned and cooked, then stuffed back into the creatures’ shells and baked. We had some really good ones at Part.Alto restaurant in Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil on our last visit. It was hot, damn hot. The casquina de siri appetizer went perfectly with cold beer in this tropical summertime weather. (Wow! It has been a year already since we were there. How nice it would be to hang out by the beach, soaking up the Sun right about now, instead of enduring yet more cold rain!)

I have to thank Joumana from taste of Beirut for this trip down memory lane that this dish is evoking. Sometime ago, she commented on our blog that she had seen the dish somewhere and was excited about tasting it. Her description made my mouth water. So here it is!

I served it at our last dinner party before kitchen remodeling really starts. The crowd was extremely pleased. Since I used fresh frozen pre-cooked and cleaned Dungeness crabmeat, I didn’t have the shells to fill. That makes it look more stunning. Instead I used a glass baking dish. Perhaps not as cute, but the taste remains the same: incomparable. It was super fun having Jocelyn, Devin, JT and Chris for dinner. Thanks for the new, equally great memories.

Dungeness crab casquinha de siri

2lb fresh crabmeat (ours came from Sun Fat)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp colorau (anato powder)
½ green bell pepper
4 tbsp coconut milk
3 tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt
Crushed red pepper
Black pepper
~4 tbsp bread crumbs
4 ripe Roma tomatoes, chopped small
2 whole scallions, chopped
½ white onion, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven to 400F.

Add olive oil to a pan on high. Add the onion and sauté until translucent. Add garlic, colorau and bell pepper. Continue cooking for a minute or so. Add tomatoes and cook for about 3 minutes until they start to dissolve. Add crabmeat, salt, red and black peppers and coconut milk. Bring everything to a vigorous boil. Turn off heat. Adjust flavors if necessary. Stir in scallions and bread crumbs just enough to soak up the juices in the pan. Transfer mix to glass dish. Sprinkle top with parmesan cheese and a bit more bread crumbs. Bake about 10 minutes or until top is golden. Serve!

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dreaming of doce de batata roxa

by Stevie on March 5, 2010

mmmm! I love this thing!

I love roadside snacks almost anywhere. In the American Southwest I chomp on Cornuts. In Virginia or at the movies, nothing is better than cherry Twizzlers. When I took a three week tour of China about fifteen years ago, the other members of our little tour group started calling me “snack man” because I would buy anything and everything from little hole-in-the-wall shops to nibble. Brazil is no different. There they’ve got a lot of “rustic” sweets made from pumpkin, peanuts, coconut or sweet potatoes. I particularly adore the doce de batata roxa, or “purple potato sweet.”

On our recent visit to attend Hegui’s nephew’s graduation from engineering school (congratulations, Neto!), we stopped to refuel and stretch our legs a bit at this large market/restaurant/bar/gas station/rest stop. Inside they had an extensive array of homemade sweets, including doce de batata roxa. I was in heaven!

You can see me in the pic devouring my sweet right outside the store in the parking lot. These candies are typically either log-shaped or come in lumpy, freeform disks. The color is always dark purple. When you bite into the better ones there’s a chewy, almost crunchy outer shell hiding a soft, creamy interior. It tastes very sweet, a little like sweet potato, and sometimes coconut-y.

Brazilian roadside sweets including doce de batata roxa

I wanted to reproduce the magical dessert here at home, so looked around online for some recipes to try. Most of them were for a pudding made of sweet potato rather than the firmer candy. Finally I discovered one recipe that added gelatin to make the sweet into bars that could be individually cut and served. I had to improvise a bit as I can’t find sweet purple potatoes. I used the red ones instead. Mine didn’t quite turn out as I had hoped. It tastes wonderfully. That’s not it. The problem is that it didn’t firm up enough to cut. So it was sweet potato pudding after all.

Sweet Potato Pudding

3 lbs sweet potatoes (about four medium sized ones)
2 cups sugar
2 whole cloves
¼ cup light coconut milk
6 g. Gelatin
some water for gelatin
brown sugar as garnish

Clean sweet potatoes and put in a large pot. Cover potatoes with water and heat to boiling then simmer for about half an hour to cook potatoes and soften skin. Test them with a fork for doneness. Remove when soft.

sweet potatoes

Drain and rinse to cool. Peel off and discard skin (I did this by hand as it was quite easy). Throw into food processor and process a few minutes until smooth.

Put potato purée, sugar, coconut milk and cloves in medium sauce pan over high heat. Once it heats up to boiling, lower heat to simmer. Stir with wooden spoon to prevent sticking. Cook about an hour until it glistens.

Dissolve gelatin in some cold water for a minute. Pour half a cup boiling water over gelatin and stir until fully dissolved, about five minutes.

Mix gelatin into potato. Pour into a baking dish and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Here’s where my recipe diverged. The original says that you “Corte o doce em quadrados ou em losangos e role no açúcar cristal um pouco antes de server,”or ‘Cut into squares or lozenges and roll in crystallized sugar before serving.’ Ah, if only it had been so easy!

sweet potato pudding

I ended up serving mine in a bowl sprinkled with brown sugar and ate it with a spoon. It has a very intriguing flavor from the clove and coconut milk: really quite good and better than pumpkin pie filling. Nevertheless, if you know a reliable recipe for the bars, please send it to me!

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manjar de côco com ameixas AKA coconut & prune pudding

by Heguiberto on December 11, 2009

A friend’s mother, Linda Dunn, an accomplished painter living and working on the Central Coast of California, emailed me the other day asking for a dessert recipe for a potluck Brazilian-themed party she was going to attend. I immediately thought of manjar, a simple and easy to make dessert I used to eat when a kid.

manjar de coco

Manjar de Côco com Ameixas

But what is it? Manjar is a kind of pudding made with milk, corn starch and some natural flavoring. My favorite has always been coconut with prune sauce. I have had manjar with other combinations of flavors in the past; such as guava and coconut, raisins with wine and coconut, figs, passion fruit or strawberries; but my favorite is really this one.

Manjar de Côco com Ameixas

Pudding ingredients:

some key ingredients for manjar de coco

some key ingredients for manjar de coco

3 &1/2 cups whole milk
8 tbsp sugar
2 cups coconut milk
7 tbsp corn starch
1 Bundt cake pan, lightly greased with canola or any flavorless oil

Sauce ingredients:

1 ½ cup pitted prunes
6 tbsp sugar
1 & ½ cups water
2 cloves
2 inch cinnamon stick

Mix pudding ingredients together in a pan. Set heat to medium and cook pudding until it thickens to a polenta consistency. Lower the temperature to minimum and simmer for another 5 minutes, stirring it at all times. Transfer mixture to greased Bundt cake pan. Cover with greased plastic film. Let it cool. Turn it upside down onto a nice platter. Refrigerate.

Place dried plums, cinnamon, cloves, sugar and water in a pan. Cook until prunes are soft and the liquid turns syrupy. Discard cinnamon stick and cloves. Let cool. Pour over pudding.

It can be served chilled or at room temperature.

This is super simple and a popular dessert that Brazilians adore.

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