Let's Food

Passport & Plate - Gizzard

Brazil | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1 kg gizzard
2 tomatos
2 potatoes
1/4 onion
tomato sauce
garlic
bacon
calabresa
parsley
chive
cilantro
salt
oil
french bread (baguette)

 

How to prepare this recipe
1. Take all of the gizzard and start cleaning it. If you see some yellow parts, like in the pictures, take it out (those are rests of chicken feed). I don't usually need forks to do it. The water running from the tap through the meet plus your hand pulling these things out should be enough.
2. After it is all clean, put in a pressure cooker for about 20 minutes.
3. While the meet is being cooked, you can score all of the other ingredients: the peppers, tomatos, onion etc.
4. It is an option to put the cilantro, it has a strong taste and will remember you about your option once you start eating the dish.
5. Choose the right amount of calabresa and bacon that you're gonna use. It can vary from one to another recipe.
6. When the 20 minutes of cooking are over, you should open the pressure cooker carefully and save the water inside it in a jar. Take the meet to a different recipient and reserve as well, leaving the cooker empty.
7. Put some oil in the same cooker and put the onion, garlic, peppers, tomato, potatoes, tomato sauce, calabresa and bacon all together.
8. After a few minutes (you choose the right moment by the smell), put the gizzard back to the cooker and add some of the water you once reserved.
9. Let it be cooked for maybe 20-30 minutes, mixing sometimes, and then, YOU'RE DONE!
10. Slice the bread and serve it with the gizzard. It's better if you have a beer in the other hand, not so much for the taste, but for the vibe.

 

The story behind this recipe
We have a strong tradition in Brazil of coming up with food you should eat while seating in a bar’s table. I see myself as a person who invest a lot of time and money in getting to know all of these options, just as much as getting to know the beers. So you could imagine my surprise when I first found out about this dish's existence - which was only a few months ago.
I was in Rio de Janeiro, where the gizzard is prepared in many different ways. Luck me, I was staying at friend’s house, and the couple didn’t let me try it from the bar. They said it was extremely overpriced and that it would be ridiculous to pay more than R$ 15 to have a portion of it. I was pleased.
I also must say, they were not MY friends. Camille and Obama only took me because my boyfriend is the godparent of their kid. And my relationship with him is a recent one, the reason why I was a bit embarrassed and feeling out of place.
Obama, my boyfriend’s friend, was making jokes and teasing me all the time - for almost a week. And in that moment I had Obama cooking for me. All the jokes paid off when I first sensed the smell of the dish. The moment I started having the gizzard with one hand, and holding my beer with the other, I noticed it all makes sense! It’s the perfect food for a beer, when it’s summer or winter. It’s cheap, but can look pretty. I used that opportunity to learn how to cook it for when I’m in São Paulo, where I live. I'm a very stereotyped person. I'm blond and I have big blue eyes, so people usually don't believe when I say that I like bars and the food they have to offer. They look at me with disbelief and then I come up with Obama's gizzard recipe... and I own their respect. Because this is something our parents or grandparents knew how to do. And I feel like not even them give the recipe the prestigious it deserves, that’s the reason why I do.