MOQUECA DE PEIXE (Brazilian fish stew)

In the opening scene of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, which is a decent movie based on not-my-favorite book by a favorite author (Jorge Amado), Flor (played by Sonia Braga) is in her own kitchen, teaching a cooking class on how to make a proper moqueca. This was the only part of the movie I remember, having seen it only once and long before I had developed any fascination with Brazil, its music, and its food.

Well, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to find exactly that clip on YouTube. Took me about seven seconds. At 1:16 of this video, there's the scene!


Decades later, as I attempt to reproduce Brazilian flavors, I recall the insane volume of dendê oil poured over what seemed like a rather small volume of food in a shallow pan. Surely this is something of a cinematic exaggeration, a metaphor for Flor's passion for her just-expired husband #1. Dendê has an extraordinarily rich flavor, aroma, and mouth feel, and too much would take food beyond heavy—a supermassive brick in the stomach.

In southern Brazil I ate moqueca de peixe several times, and it was always delicious and intriguing. While the principal ingredient varied—from thresher shark to shrimp to gigantic pintado catfish to caiman—the stew base was basically the same, having predominant flavors of sofrito, dendê and coconut milk, usually with tomato and slivers of brightly colored bell peppers, mostly for appearance's sake. And while it was still very heavy for a fish dish, the dendê content was surprisingly modest—and this apparently is a concession to accommodate the wimpy palates of southern Brazilians.

Bahians (folks from the northeastern state of Bahia, home of both moqueca and samba) it seems, are acclimated to extreme levels of both dendê and coconut in their food. I've never been to the northeast to confirm this, but I did challenge my friend Rogerio (from the tiny town of Uruçuca in Bahia) once to a moqueca cook-off. Mine was the image of what I remembered from São Paulo, and his was what he claimed to be a very authentic Bahian moqueca de peixe, containing the better part of three bottles of dendê oil, along with four containers of cocounut milk. My dish had all of two tablespoons of dendê and half a can of coconut—which I saw as enough to provide the right flavor without weighing the stew down to the point of causing gravity-induced implosion/spontaneous human combustion. I realized then that it was no cinematic metaphor that Braga was creating with her supple hands. It was just lunch. Bahians consume palm oil like the French soak up butter.

I apologize those who insist on authenticity at all costs, but the moqueca I'm making here will seem to the purist as an abomination—a litany of broken rules--which I do quite happily only because I find that the "proper" amount of palm and coconut products makes a dish that's kind of, well, gross. It's not like I'm on a mission to teach all of Bahia a much-needed lesson in restraint—I wouldn't want to do that. We already have a surfeit of restraint, what with all the uptight folks in big cities like Milan and Chicago it's a damned righteous thing to have at least some people compensating with habitual excess. I just prefer my moqueca much lighter on the coconut and dendê and (while I'm at it) with quite a bit more fiery punch.

Apart from quantities of key ingredients, my process for moqueca is also different from what you would probably find in a book of traditional recipes—but to me it's more rational. For example, stewing the fish for the same duration that the vegetables stew would result in either overcooked fish or undercooked vegetables. Makes more sense to stew the vegetables on their own and add the fish at the end a few minutes before serving.

I start with rinsing and soaking the rice. I prefer brown rice, and if that makes me a hippie, so be it. Rinsing brown rice only takes away tiny flecks of chaff, and this step is not as important as it is when preparing white rice, in which there's enough starch to make the rice gooey if not thoroughly rinsed before soaking. After soaking I "calculate" the right amount of water by tilting the pot and allowing the water to pour slowly out of the pot until just a little more than half of the rice is still under the water's surface. I then put the pot up to boil until the water is below the level of the top of the rice, cover and turn the heat down to a low simmer. After twenty minutes I turn the fire off completely. After another twenty minutes, I use a paddle to turn and fluff the rice in the pot, before covering it back up. Of course this is all happening while I'm doing other stuff, but the timing must be such that the rice is done (to the point of fluffing) before the moqueca is ready to serve.

I'm using shrimp and salmon (the latter must be wild only, please, not the obese, artificially colored, foul-tasting mud marlin they raise in those ecologically disastrous aquaculture pens). Shrimp need to be peeled and deveined, after which I give them a little splash of white wine. The salmon I got (at Costco) was fresh sockeye, and I cut roughly 100 g pieces right off the skin. The seafood bits got a salt-and-pepper treatment and went back in the fridge to wait their turn.

The sofrito consisted of about two tablespoons each of dendê oil and olive oil, lots of onion, green (one pasilla and two jalapeño) and yellow (three of the common, waxy semi-hot type) peppers, lots of garlic and fresh ginger (julienned), and when this had cooked down and was just starting to brown, I added several fresh roma tomatoes peeled and diced, half a can of coconut milk, some jellied fish stock (from some fish I caught a few days ago) and salt (to taste). This mixture smells awesome and it should be allowed to cook on low heat for a while until all the veggies are very tender.

Everything I've gone through so far is pretty laid back—stuff that can happen at whatever pace you set. It could be just before dinner or it could be done a day ahead. The final step, however, is time-sensitive, and you'll want to do this shortly before dinner. I start by using a Benriner mandoline to sliver a nice pile of red, yellow and green bell peppers.

I break several rules with my practice of coating just one side of the fish with a dry spice rub and searing that side on a very hot iron pan before assembling the stew. If you don't do this, the moqueca will turn out just great, but I find that the sear adds another dimension of flavor and texture.

The fish and the vegetable mixture can be put together in the pan used for searing, which was already hot, and this could be "made pretty" with a casual scattering across the top with the bell pepper slivers (you're more than welcome to get artistic with this part). Cover goes on, it cooks for just long enough to make a couple of caipirinhas, and it's done! [The pan in the pic below is larger--a #12--than the one in the previous pic, a #8.]



Ladle a nice helping over rice, and toss in some finely chopped cilantro if you like (I totally forgot the cilantro today!), and regale in complete disregard for authenticity!