Part I: Brazilian Food is Awesome

October 28, 2007

Part I: Brazilian Food is Awesome

Today we slept in, went food shopping, and then spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the apartment from top to bottom, since my friend is coming to stay with us this week and we need to have everything nice and clean! Other than that, the rain has stopped, it is veryhot, and Extreme Makeover Home Edition still makes me cry.

Moving on!

Here begins Part I of my new series about the awesomeness of Brazilian food, where I will describe all of the delicious things you must try when you visit this pais lindo!

Part I: Salgados ("Salty" Pastries)

Salgados are a wide group of snack foods that are mainly salty pastries, but can also include things like chips and pretzels. At nearly every cafe, deli, and juice bar in Rio (and in most parts of Brazil) salgados are freshly made and people eat them as snacks at any time of the day. Here are some of the most common ones you will find.

Coxinha (koh-sheen-ya): a tear-drop shaped fried pastry filled with chicken

Kibe (kee-bee): Of Middle Eastern origin, this fried pastry has ground meat inside and its outside crunchy shell resembles a falafel.

Joelho (joh-el-you): Joelho means knee in Portuguese, but this actually is a croissant-like, sandwich-like pastry of bread, ham, and cheese. Kind of gross.

Esfirra (es-fee-ha): Also of Middle-Eastern origin, this triangular, folded breaded pastry looks like a humentashen, but is made of salty bread and is filled with chicken, cheese, or ground meat. Yummy.

Pastel de carne/queijo (Pas-tew gee kar-nee/kay-joo): Meat/cheese pastries, these look like Chinese food (I think they are of Chinese origin). The outside is like a wonton or those crunchy crackers you get with Chinese delivery in the US, and the inside is ground meat or cheese.

Bolinho de aipim (Boh-leen-yo gee ay-peem): Little ball of cassava (yucca), this pastry is fried yucca filled with ground meat. Mm.

Salsichao (sal-see-chownn): Known as "big sausage," this is basically a corn dog: it's a hot dog on a stick fried in oil and cassava flour. Kind of gross.

Folheado (foh-lee-ah-doh): Folded pastry; this pastry is made from a type of filo dough and is filled with cheese, spinach, ham and cheese, or chicken; but I have also seen them made with fruit fillings and are delicious. Which brings me to Part II: Brazilian Food is Awesome, featuring Salgados that are sweet!

Posted at 06:59 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink

Comments

A food critic now! Wow. Don't forget to make your bed too.

You mean the food in our country is not good? What about Wendy's or Subway? Right they have those in Brasil.

Ok, here it is going down to about 40 degrees tonight. Think about that. Frost up near Poughkeepsie.

Posted by: david | October 28, 2007 at 07:19 PM

Your food pictures made me hungry! More importantly though, congratulations on Balance making such a big splash at GW. You worked long and hard to bring it to the respected and professional level it has achieved, and you should be proud. You may have a career as a dance director or impressario yet!
If you get comments from people you don't know who seem to know you, it's because I keep passing your blog onto my friends...
Enjoy the warmth...the temperature keeps dropping here and I think we've finally gotten into a delayed fall.
Lenore

Posted by: lenore glickhouse | October 29, 2007 at 02:41 PM