Passport & Plate - Squid Mocqueca
Brazil | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 2 photos
Ingredients
For 4
600g squid (cleaned)
150g white onion, sliced finely
50g coriander, washed and picked
300g red pepper, sliced into fine lengths
160g tomato, diced
2 cloves garlic, pureed
2-3 mild red chillis, finely diced
1 400g tin of rich coconut milk
2 limes
Red palm oil (if you find 100% palm oil, dilute 1:1 with light rapeseed oil)
Salt and pepper
How to prepare this recipeAsk the fishmonger to clean and open the squid for you. Score the inside of the flesh in cross hatches (if you’re not sure, it’s the softer, wetter bit). Then cut the flesh into approx. 6cm squares. Reserve the tentacles and a few pieces of scored body for frying at the end. Season with salt, pepper and the juice of half a lime. Leave for 10-15 minutes whilst you make the rest of the stew.
Finely chop the coriander stalks. Save the leaves for the end.
Put two tablespoons of red palm oil into a heavy saucepan or casserole and place that on a low-medium flame. Sweat the onion, the coriander stalks and half the diced red chilli. After three to four minutes, add the sliced pepper and soften for ten minutes.
Add the garlic and cook out for another minute or two. Pour in the creamy coconut milk, then fill the now empty can to half way, and pour that in too. Drop the squid in and bring the stew to a low boil. Turn down and simmer for an hour - the squid will soften as it braises, and its flavour intensifies and infuses through the stock.
After 55 minutes or so, the stew is nearly done. Put a frying pan on the hottest hob you have. Season the remaining squid and coat in a teaspoon of palm oil. Roughly chop the remaining coriander leaves whilst the pan is heating up.
When your pan is virtually smoking, throw the squid in and cook it for no longer than a minute, so that it browns, crisps and curls, but doesn't become tough.
Stir half the chopped coriander into the stew and the juice of a whole lime. Season with plenty of salt and pepper.
Serve ladled over rice, garnished with the remaining coriander, diced chilli, fried squid and a squeeze of juice from the remaining half a lime. Eat with a spoon – there should be quite a lot of liquid.
The story behind this recipeBrazil is intoxicating. The sights, the sounds, the heat, the smell, the cachaça…
There are a number of moments from a trip almost ten years ago, which remain as vivid and emotive today as they were at the time.
I recall a pre Carnival samba rehearsal in a down at heel São Paulo neighbourhood, where maybe 1500 people danced in a warehouse to the beat of loud drums & piercing whistle blasts. The noise bounced off the steel shell and reverberated through our bodies. The most fun I've ever had whilst sober and with my clothes on.
I remember partying well past dawn on the second beach of Morro de São Paulo, an island in the Bahia at the north east of the country. Cocktail fuelled and capoeira inspired, this time (conversely) was probably the most fun I've had without my clothes on (& very definitely not sober). We were all surprised to make our water taxi the next morning & our flight back to the UK after 7 months away.
But what lingers most effortlessly is the memory of *the* dish of that trip: mocqueca.
It was hard to escape mocqueca whilst in Salvador & indeed elsewhere in the north east. Which is no bad thing. Essentially this is a stew of peppers, onion, tomato, coconut milk, coriander and hunks of local white fish, usually served in the thick stoneware pot that it was cooked in. So far, so simple. But there was depth, spice and a vivid red colour to the stock too, which made it stand out from anything I'd had before (or since).
The secret ingredient is dende (palm) oil.
Put simply, mocqueca = dende oil = Bahia. Most travel books tell we Europeans to take care - eat dende oil too enthusiastically & you & your stomach fall out. It really is quite something: rich & thick & intertwined with the history & industry of the region, It has an extraordinary flavour.
Fortunately, you can track it down in the UK - in Sainsbury's of all places. When I found this, I set about recreating mocqueca as authentically as possible, just with a local Cornish squid twist.
