Just about a year ago today, I ate one of the best meals of my life in Salvador, a city in Northern Brazil. Salvador is famous for its amazing Bahian food, capoeira, and live drum troupes, and it's showcased famously in Michael Jackson's "They Don't Really Care About Us" video. MJ's presence is everywhere in the Pelourinho, the funky cultural epicenter of the city. He's just another offbeat element that makes Salvador one of the liveliest and joyful cities I've ever been, despite some fairly severe social issues.
My friends and I took advantage of the free margarita happy hour in our hostel, and before long we had made some new friends, ready to shamble out for some food together. Somehow we ended up in a secluded garden in the back of a restaurant that was far too refined and romantic for our ragtag, noisy group of five. We still refer to that night as "the five man date," surrounded by schmoopy couples, dining by candlelight with random Brits we thought we would never see again
gucci clearance sale.
One of the dishes that we shared that night was an octopus moqueca. Moqueca is a classic dish from Bahia and is characterized by seafood, coconut milk, peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Some versions omit the coconut milk and add other delicious things like plantains or dried shrimp. The seafood also varies.
Usually Moqueca is colored to a rich brick red by dende oil, an African red palm oil. The oil is pretty unhealthy, and can be tough to find, so I used a blender to recreate the color. Blend the tomatoes, onion, chiles and garlic and cook it like a sofrito, the classic base of many Latin American foods. It builds great flavor and gives the stew the nice consistent red color typical of dende oil. You can also skip the blender and just sauté everything in its chopped state, but you won't get the same color or rich texture
Dentist central.
I also made a quick shrimp stock using the shells. This is another step you can skip (sub in pre-made chicken or fish stock). But it makes efficient use of the shrimp shells, and also builds great flavor and color.
Moqueca is typically served with hot sauce and toasted manioc flour. To simplify for today, we'll just serve it with rice, another common accompaniment
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