Brazilian Mortadella Sandwich: Sanduíche de Mortadela

Provolone cheese originated in the Campania area of Italy, but since that time, it has become popular elsewhere in Italy, as well as in other countries. It melts pretty easily and it is stringy when heated, making provolone a common addition to pizzas. Another option is to use white American cheese, or yellow American cheese, if you're not concerned with the color of the cheese. Mortadella is closely related to bologna, or baloney, as it is more commonly called in the United States. Mortadella is typically made of finely ground pork and mixed with garlic, nutmeg, ground coriander, black peppercorns, pistachio nuts and small pieces of pork fat (the black peppercorns, pistachios and pork fat are easily visible in the finished product, as they are not finely ground). 

I make my sandwich somewhat "smaller" by using 1/3 pound of mortadella, but in Brazil or in Brazilian restaurants outside of Brazil, the sandwiches more commonly contain 1/2 pound of mortadella or more. Yes, these are HUGE sandwiches!  

 

Ingredients (per sandwich):  

1/3 to 1/2 pound of sliced mortadella

1 or 2 teaspoons of oil for frying the meat (peanut oil, olive oil or avocado oil, all are good)

3 or 4 slices provolone cheese

3 pieces of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil  

(recommended, but optional) 1 or 2 tablespoons mayonnaise

(recommended, but optional) 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 

bread roll like a kaiser roll or hoagie roll

Fold slices of the mortadella to make two or three piles of meat (probably good to make two piles if you use 1/3 pound of mortadella, but three piles if you use 1/2 pound). Add oil to a large skillet over medium heat and fry the meat until the outside slice is browned and a bit crispy (the inside slices will heat through, but remain soft); turn and brown the other side of the meat, but after a short time, add slices of cheese to the top of each pile near the end of cooking; it will begin to melt. Remove meat piles to a plate. Slice open the bread rolls and place them open side down in the skillet. Toast the rolls lightly, and don't worry if they sop up some of the pan drippings from the previously cooked mortadella. Remove the rolls and spread the bottom part with mustard, put one pile of cheese topped mortadella over the mustard covered roll part, add sun dried tomatoes, then add the other pile of cheese topped meat, squeeze on or spoon on some mayonnaise and press the top part of the roll onto the sandwich. Don't forget the napkins.   

 

WORD HISTORY:

Cabin-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, but Latin had "capanna/cabanna," which meant "hut," and this gave Occitan^ "cabana/cabano" ("hut"), which gave Old French "cabane" ("hut, small house"), and English borrowed the word in the mid 1300s as "cabane," initially meaning "small room on a ship (initially, for use by officers, later, more general for crew members and passengers). This then became "cabin," with the extra meaning, "a roughly constructed small house, typically made of logs." French borrowed the English word as "cabine," meaning "small or compact construction for living quarters, small room for living quarters on a ship, for bathing, or for some other specific purpose; such as, (modern) passenger area of an airplane or a telephone booth." Many other European languages use forms of "cabin," but exactly how they acquired the word is not always clear to me. German has "Kabine" meaning "small room, booth/stand, cubicle, passenger area of a plane," and this seemingly was borrowed in the 1600s from English, as it was initially spelled "Cabbin" in German, but French certainly influenced it further as the spelling changed to "Kabine." Portuguese has "cabine," meaning "compartment, booth, fitting room," and "cabana" meaning "hut, shanty, shed."  

 

^  Occitan is a Latin-based language of the western Mediterranean region, which includes parts of modern Spain, France, Monaco and Italy. It's best known dialect is likely "Provençal," which is spoken in the French Riviera.

Portuguese & Brazilian "Green Soup": "Caldo Verde"

 

Edited for clarification purposes 11-21-21

"Caldo Verde" is a traditional soup from Portugal, also made in Portugal's former colony of Brazil. It is typically made with a type of cabbage grown in Portugal and the neighboring Spanish province of Galicia, but this cabbage is very tough to find outside of the above mentioned area; however, there is a suitable substitute, kale. Further, the Portuguese and Brazilians use their own "chouriço," or "linguiça," both types of sausages which are, again, not always easily found elsewhere in the world, but Spanish "chorizo" is much more readily available, and is "similar." (Note: This is the dry cured Spanish chorizo, not Mexican chorizo.) These Portuguese and Spanish pork sausages are flavored with paprika, with the Spanish version tending to have more paprika. In Portugal, this soup is traditionally served with Portuguese Cornbread ("Broa de Milho"), a crusty topped cornbread, somewhat different from American cornbread, due to its crusty top and dense interior, and it is made using yeast. While this is my own version, the basic recipe and information was from "Culinaria, European Specialties, Volume 2," chief editors: André Dominé and Michael Ditter; Christine Westphal, editor, Könemann Publishing,  Cologne, 1995

Ingredients:

1 lb. kale, with large stems removed, then chopped or torn into smaller pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
3 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
10 to 12 oz. chorizo, sliced into bite-sized pieces
2 cups water
6 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon pepper (white or black, but white is more common in Portugal, from my understanding)
drizzle olive oil on each serving

Simmer the sliced chorizo in the water for a couple of minutes, remove the chorizo, but keep the now flavored cooking water. In a large pot, heat the olive oil on medium heat, add the onion, salt, garlic and potatoes, stir well. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the chicken broth and 1 cup of the reserved chorizo-flavored water, stir well. Adjust heat to simmer the soup for about until the potatoes are softened, but still firm and not mushy. Remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for a couple of minutes, then, using a stick blender, puree (also spelled, 'purée') the soup until smooth. Return the soup to the heat (medium heat, and if you want to thin the soup more, add the remaining chorizo-flavored water). Add the kale and pepper, stir well. Simmer to just soften the kale some ("about" 3 minutes; it should keep a nice green color this way). In each serving bowl, add 3 to 5 pieces of chorizo, then add the hot soup over it. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil onto each serving.

 
WORD HISTORY:
Cauldron-This word for "kettle" goes back to Indo European "kelhe," which had the notion "warm, hot." This gave its Latin offspring "calidus," with the same meaning, and this produced "calidarium," meaning "warm or hot bath." This then gave Latin "caldaria," meaning "cooking pot, basin," which gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "chaudron," meaning "kettle," and this was rendered as, "caudron/cauderon," in the northern dialects of Old French, and it was borrowed as "caudron" into English circa 1300, with the spelling "cauldron" coming a little later by influence of the Latin form. 

Brazilian Salted Tapioca with Ham & Cheese Filling (Tapioca Salgada)

First, "tapioca" is a starch made from cassava root. Cassava is a plant commonly grown in tropical and subtropical parts of South America, especially Brazil, parts of Africa and also southern Asia. Americans and Canadians, also likely the people of Britain, would almost surely think of pudding upon hearing the word "tapioca." The pudding is sweet and usually made with vanilla and pearl tapioca, a form which looks like fish eggs, and the pudding is even commercially produced for sale in supermarkets, typically sold in little tub-like containers. In some parts of the world, however, tapioca is an important starch, often used as flour in cooking. Unlike wheat flour, tapioca is gluten free, an important dietary consideration for people with digestive reactions to gluten, which is a protein in wheat and many other grain products. Tapioca flour, also known as tapioca starch, can be found in Latino markets, or in many supermarkets, often in the Latino/Hispanic section, although I found it in the "gluten free" section of one supermarket.

This recipe is from Brazil, where Portuguese is the language. This is unlike the other countries of South America, and Central America, for that matter, where Spanish is the common language.* The second word of the name of the dish comes from the meaning "salted," from the ham, which like true "country ham," tends to be dry cured by salting, and not necessarily by smoking of the ham. In fact, the Portuguese word for ham, "presunto," is from the same Latin source as "prosciutto," the Italian word for "ham." These are not difficult to make at all, as making the crepe is the only real work to it, and it's not much.

Ingredients (4 servings):

9 to 10 tablespoons of tapioca flour (depending upon your skillet size)
a pinch or 2 of salt
3 to 4 tablespoons of water
8 thin slices of ham (I used the very thin deli sliced ham, and it was smoked, but finding dry cured ham, like prosciutto, is not always easy, and it can be expensive, but if you have it, use it)
4 slices of mozzarella cheese or you can use it shredded
4 teaspoons of ricotta cheese, thinned very slightly with some milk (Brazilians have "requeijão," a type of  creamy cheese
slices of tomato
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

Put the tapioca flour/starch into a bowl and mix in a pinch or two of salt. Add 1 tablespoon water at a time and mix lightly, until a sort of crumb or streusel mixture forms. Not all of the starch has to be in one of the clumps, which can vary in size. No rocket science here. It should not be wet or runny AT ALL. Heat a small skillet over medium heat, do not add any oil! Brazilians do the next step right into the skillet, but I used a separate large plate. Use a sieve with relatively small openings and rub the starch clumps through the sieve to reduce the clumps to about the size of fine cornmeal or grits. Add about two + tablespoons or so of the starch mixture to the skillet, making sure to even it out in a round thin layer. Within about 30 seconds, the mixture should begin to meld together into a crepe or thin pancake. Layer on 2 thin slices of the ham, then a slice of mozzarella, then some tomato slices, then drizzle on a teaspoon of the thinned ricotta, and sprinkle on a little oregano. The mozzarella should be melting slightly by then. Fold the crepe over in the skillet. Ready to go. Repeat the process for the others. Serve warm.

* Portuguese and Spanish are both Latin-based languages from the Iberian peninsula in southwestern Europe. They are similar in many ways, and mutually intelligible to "some" degree, more so in writing, and I'm sure speakers of each find it pretty easy to learn the other language. Actually, Portuguese is much closer to Galician, a language of northwestern Spain, although it is perhaps thought by some to be a Spanish dialect.

The top picture shows more of the filling, and the bottom picture a bit more of the tapioca wrap.

WORD HISTORY:
Crepe/Crêpe/Crisp-These closely related words go back to the Indo European root "sker/skre," which had the notion of "bend, turn, twist." This gave Latin "crispus," which meant "curly, wavy," and this was "seemingly" borrowed into Old English directly from Latin, as "crisp," and with the meaning "curly, wavy." Later the meaning began to change to the modern sense of "crackly, brittle," "perhaps" from the idea of some foods being grilled or fried to the point where they, or the skin of meat, "curled, became wavy," which often then resulted in them being "crackly." In England later, the noun form, "crisp/crisps," was used for what Americans call "potato chip(s)." In the meantime, going way back again, Latin "crispus" was inherited by Latin-based Old French as "crespe," with the "curly" meaning. The French later used the term for a thin pancake which "curled" when fried. English borrowed the word as "crepe," still the preferred spelling in American English, but it later also borrowed the modified French form "crêpe," with the "^" mark, called a "circumflex," which is a modern way of showing that there is a missing letter from the original spelling of a word, often an "s."

Excellent Brazilian Shrimp Dish: Vatapá

"Vatapá" is the name of a great Brazilian stew featuring shrimp in a somewhat sweet creamy sauce. I recently fixed this dish and I intend to do so again. For those unaware, Portuguese is the language of Brazil.* I took the basic recipe from a Brazilian cookbook, "Brazilian Food," by Thiago Castanho, Firefly Books Ltd., Buffalo, N.Y. and Ontario, Canada, 2014, but I then used my own adaptations to make a version of the dish. This is not difficult to make and I have simplified it even more, and the ingredients are all things most people already have on hand, or they are easily found in the supermarket. 

Ingredients:
2 lb. shrimp (I used frozen cooked shrimp in the 41/50 size, with tail shell on, which I removed after thawing the shrimp and before adding them to the recipe)
3 or 4 slices of dried French or Italian bread
Panko bread crumbs (plain/non seasoned), if needed
8 oz. coconut milk (plus some water)
8 to 10 oz. clam juice (or homemade seafood stock)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, minced or chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
2 Roma or other small tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 or 2 mild chili peppers or 1 mild and 1 serrano, seeded and chopped
1 or 2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon Sazón with culantro and achiote (easily found in Latino markets or in the Latino section of your supermarket or Latino shops)
(2 teaspoons palm oil, not palm kernel oil. I skipped using the palm oil completely.)
salt and pepper
1/4 cup of cilantro leaves, torn into pieces
1/4 cup basil leaves, torn into pieces
Serve with white rice (I added some onion and garlic, as per the cookbook, to the general recipe I use for white rice, which includes a little butter and some oil, besides the rice, water and a little salt).

First, the cookbook recipe calls for making homemade shrimp stock, made from the heads and shells of the shrimp. I have simply used store bought clam juice. Tear or cut the bread into smaller pieces, put it into a dish and pour the coconut milk over it, plus add 1 cup of water. Let the bread soak while you fix another part of the recipe. Using a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and then add the onion, then a minute or so later, the garlic, the tomatoes and the chili peppers. Saute to let the mixture soften. Add the shrimp and the clam juice and mix well. Add the bay leaf (or leaves). Bring mixture to a low simmer and then add the cumin, the Sazón, a pinch of salt and some black pepper (also the palm oil, if using). Add the bread mixture, stirring well to incorporate. The bread should thicken the dish into a sauce, but if it does not thicken properly (it should be pretty thick), stir in some Panko breadcrumbs a little at a time until the mixture does thicken. I had to use the breadcrumbs when I made this. The sauce should have a yellowish color to it. Stir in the cilantro and basil leaves. Cook for just a minute, and you're done. Serve with the white rice. If you want the dish to look nice, withhold a few shrimp from the recipe, cook them separately in some water and then add them to the top of each serving as a garnish, as I've done in the photo below. 

* Portuguese is a Latin-based language that developed in the Iberian Peninsula in western Europe. It is closely related to Spanish, but even more so to Galician, a language primarily spoken in northwest Spain. Brazil was once a colony of Portugal, and Brazil has the distinction of being the largest Portuguese speaking country in the world. Portuguese is from the Indo European family of languages, and thus it is related to English, but further down the family tree.  

 

WORD HISTORY:
Shrimp-This word for a "generally small, narrow shellfish" is related to "scrimp." The ultimate origin of "shrimp" is unclear, and its overall history is a bit "iffy," but Old Germanic had "skrimpanan," which had the notion of "to make smaller, to shrink." From this came Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "scrimman," which meant "to shrink." Whether a form of this English word then later produced "schrimpe" is not known, but that form later became modern "shrimp." Forms of the word in the other Germanic languages have a "p" sound,^ and it is "possible" that an English form of the word did too, but that that word had not been recorded by the educated part of English society from post Norman invasion times, when French and Latin were the preferences of the heavily Norman based nobility and high society. Of course it is also possible that even if the English word lacked the "p" sound, that the influence of its mainland Germanic relatives could have altered the English word, giving it the "p" sound, as the English traded with, and came into contact with, speakers of other Germanic languages, especially Flemish, Dutch, Frisian, Low German and Old Norse.         

^ The other Germanic languages do not use a form of the word for the shellfish.