Capixaba Pie- Torta Capixaba
Hello friends,
Sorry for yesterday. We had a blackout here.
Hey Ana Paula, thanks but if the Embratur offered me that, I would probably refuse it. For me, it's needless receive fee for sharing positive things with friends, even knowing that the negative are that sells and win Oscars. By the way, it's one of my weakeness the will of sharing positive things I see with friends, some of them, perhaps who won't never have the opportunity to take a trip to EspÃrito Santo in Brazil. But if this virtual trip sounds boring... maybe I should start talking only about myself or focusing only in grammar... do you think it would be more interesting? Anyway, I have a promisse to carry out...
You know…I’m about to leave you in the next few days. So I’d better carry out the things I’ve promised before. I’m talking about the Capixaba pie. I know you might find nearly impossible to get a pan made of mud and some ingredients are not available in certains places, even so I think it would be good to hear about this dish.
So, friends, let’s come back to the history again because even a pie has its past.
The tradition of having Capixaba pie in my state began many moons ago, more than 150 years ago and it has to be with religion.
The Catholic church preached the total abstinence from meat during the Lent, the period of 40 days from Ash Wednesday to the day before Easter. So the upper classes could afford the cod imported from Portugal while the lower classes had to use their creativity mixing not so expensive seafoods in a kind of cocktail. This dish became so popular that later, even the elite got into this cocktail adding the cod to the recipe and after that the “heart of palm” too. By the time there were zillions of palm trees here, especially in the hills. And there was so the so-called “Torta Capixaba”.
In the past, it was served exactly at 8pm on Friday only in Easter holiday. Nowadays, it may be served for lunch, for dinner, even for breakfast, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, in the Easter , the ordinary weekend, with religious purpose or just to make your loved one happy.
In addition it is not really a cheap dish anymore. It is rather expensive and costs an arm and a leg due to the money the ingredients cost, if you follow the traditional recipe.
Ingredients:
- urucum (Nahhed please help me explaining what is urucum again?
- 18 crabs (the meat from them)
- The meat of 18 “siris”(it’s another specie of crustacean that looks like a crab and also moves sideways)
- 2 plates of clams
- 2 plates of mussel
- 2 plates of oysters
- cod ( you decide the quantity)
- 1 kg of frech prawn without the outershell
- 24 eggs
- 3 cans of “heart of palm” or 12 pieces of it
- 10 sprigs of green onion and 10 of green coriander
- 1 kg of tomatoes
- 5 onions
- The meat of 2 lobsters
- 12 lemons
- Spice
- Olive oil
- 1 bulb of crushed garlics
- Olive (the fruit of the olive tree)
Amy, I suggest you to prepare everything a day before and let the easier things for the next day.
Let’s cook:
At first, clean the cod, let it into the water for all night long for removing the excess of salt.
Clean and boil the crabs, “siris” and lobsters with salt separately. I’ve never said it would be easy!
Then knead the meat of them separately.
Cook one moqueca for each one separately: the meat of crab, siri and lobster. Please follow the recipe of Moqueca Capixaba post replacing the fish for seafood.
Cook also one moqueca for each ingredient: cod, oyster, mussel, prawn, clams (don’t forget to remove the outershells and also remove the soap after cooking. If you want, you may cook “pirão” with it as I said before on the Moqueca Capixaba post).
The “heart of palm”...cut it in small pieces, then crush them using a clean dishcloth removing the excess of liquid at the same time.
Everything must be dry.
After cooking all the “moquecas”, heat olive oil and fry the crushed garlic with urucum, salt and onionin small pieces.
Then add the seashells (mussel, oyster, clam), add the cod, crabs, siris, prawn, the palm and lobsters (without any soup).
Cut and add the olives in small pieces. Add the green onion and green coriander.
Now the eggs...bake (or beat?) the yolks. Add a part of it to the mixing and save the rest that must be added to the whites.
Then heat olive oil in a pan of mud, add all the dry mixing. Cover it with the beaten eggs and decorate with onions (finaly chopped) and olives. And roast in 150 º for 20’.
If you are veggie, try replacing the meat for cabbage, it will be delicious but couldn’t you try the seafood meat only once in life? It’s almost a crime replace the meat in this dish.
Anyway, you can modify the recipe prompted by me according to your taste. For example, if you don’t like seashells like me, just remove them from the recipe.
This dish is served with wine. Choose some relaxing music to play in the background and have fun!
Good bye, friends
Byyyyye
Adriana
Comments
Dear Adri That looks absolutly yummy, however, after read the recipe, I think the best I could do is travel someday to Brazil and ask for Capixaba pie in a restaurant. I'm sure they'll do it better than me. Bye and have fun.
Hello Adriana! I think your blog is excelent! Moreover, you only have to change if you want it:-). By the way, the Capixaba pie sounds great, but it seems it´s not a easy dish to be prepared. Good bye, Ana Paula.
Hello Adriana! I think your blog is excelent! Moreover, you only have to change if you want it:-). By the way, the Capixaba pie sounds great, but it seems it´s not a easy dish to be prepared. Good bye, Ana Paula.
WOW!! My mouth is watering. I love the cod and the combination of flavors in Capixaba Pie is fantastic. In Venezuela, we have a special dish for Christmas called "Hallaca" and was created by lower classes and now is a dish more expensive (the same case that the Capixaba Pie)... Its marvelous that a lot of countrys have a story like that.
Hello Adri, Oh dear, Im always there to help when you need some. Here you go with Urucum: 'Urucum', internationally known as 'Annatto'. It's a Brazilian herb and the tree grows as high as six meters(20 feet). It produces a spiny, copper-coloured fruit, inside it are red seeds that are used to colour food. Urucum comes from the 'Tupi' word Uru'ku which means 'red'. I've read some more of its benefits and it's not only used for the colouring purposes but it also has a medicinal value. It's a beneficial herb I must say.Naheed:>
Dear Adri, I like cooking and I cook quite often at home. Your recipe seems quite elaborate and certainly delicious. I have probably missed an explanation but I’ll try to guess for how many persons, following the ingredients, your dish is supposed to be : ten, twelve persons ?
Hi again, I would like to add a little more about Urucum which I might have forgotten in the comment earlier. As for the fruit of Urucum, it's the seeds that are basically used. Adriana, it's a privilege of meeting people from around the world. I came to know about the natural way of colouring food. And I could never know of it if you had not told us the recipe for capixaba.Thank you friend! Naheed:>
Hello! The seafood pie looks really delicious but it’s for sure impossible to me to make it here, although, I consider myself a very good chef. Firstly, it’s too much work. I don’t have a maid to help me in the kitchen like I used to have in Brazil. Secondly, you’re right; it’s strongly expensive for us. Even though I live in the seaside(The Hague), the seafood is here unaffordable; specially the salt-cod fish. The fresh cod fish is cheaper as we have a lot of them here. Finally, I must invite the whole city to eat with us. It’s too much! Furthermore, Dutch people are not used to eat so much. Consequently, I would also have to pay the hospital bill. Unfortunately, I have now a compulsive desire to eat this pie. As I already told you, I am not an authentic Capixaba as I’ve never eaten this pie. Do you think I can find it in a Restaurant with home-made taste? Maybe, I can ask one of my aunts to make it for me when I will be in Rio in October. That was a brilliant idea of my!I hope we can chat more.
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