Brazilian Bolinhos
It would be unfair to say that Brazilian food is unsophisticated – if you live in one of Brazil’s larger cities, you can certainly find food sophisticated enough to stand toe-to-toe with any European or North American über-restaurant (by the way if you happen to be a sugardaddy/sugarmummy and feel like treating me, my wish list starts with ORO in Rio and D.O.M. in São Paulo – arrival by helicopter is preferred but not a deal-breaker).
So yes, fancy Brazilian food does exist, but typical Brazilian food tends to be relatively simple (though no less delicious for its simplicity). Many of my favourite Brazilian dishes are sold in bars as petiscos and this group can be further subdivided into categories, one if which I will look at today: Bolinhos.
Let’s start off with one of the all time classics:
Bolinhos de Bacalhau
A classic bolinho which originated back in Portugal. When bolinhos de bacalhau are good, they are sublime. Soft, fluffy potato mixed with rich, salty cod, deep fried to produce a crisp, golden shell. Enjoy with some hot chilli sauce and an ice cold beer. My two favourite bars for bolinhos de bacalhau are Nova Capela (Lapa) and Pavão Azul (Copacabana).
The bolinhos de bacalhau of Nova Capela are the best I’ve had.
Bolinhos de Camarão
Staying with seafood, a good bolinho de camarão will involve one or two juicy shrimps surrounded by mashed aipim (cassava/yuca/manioc). As with all bolinhos, it is then deep-fried to give a crispy shell. A naughty (but delicious) variation on this recipe is the bolinho de camarão e catupiry. Catupiry is a mild and extremely rich, gooey cheese. The result works very well. If you can get a seat (you’ll wait a long time on the weekend) then you can find these at Bar Bracarense in Leblon.
Fat shrimps + gooey cheese = tasty indulgence from Bracarense.
Bolinhos de Feijoada
I’m sure you’re all familiar with Feijoada – a stew of black beans, pork and beef, traditionally served with couve (shredded greens) torresmo (pork skin crackling) and slices of orange. Well some years ago, Kátia Barbosa had a flash of inspiration and decided to take the constituent parts of feijoada and make them into a bolinho. The delicious result made her famous. You can try Kátia’s creations at the very popular Aconchego Carioca in Zona Norte.
The original and the best from Aconchego Carioca – served up with torresmo, orange and a mini caipirinha.
Acarajé
Hmmm, does Acarajé truly belong to the bolinho family? Maybe it is more of a charismatic cousin from Bahia, but either way, I think this amazing spicy fritter is always worth a mention. The ‘bolinho’ in this case is a ball of puréed black-eye beans, deep fried in dendê (palm oil). The fritter is then cut open and filled with salted shrimps, vatapá (a delicious mush made with breadcrumbs, ginger, chilli, peanuts, cashew nuts, onion and tomato) and caruru (a condiment made with okra, onion, shrimp and palm oil).
Acarajé – rich and intense!
You can find Acarajé at the Feira Hippie in Ipanema on Sunday. You can also often get them from the Baiana woman who is often found outside Bar do Gomes.
Notable Others
There are many, many other members of the bolinho family. How could I forget the house party favourite, bolinhos de queijo (deep-fried cheese balls!)? Bolinhos de feijao (bean balls) and bolinhos de aipim (mashed cassava surrounding a tasty meat filling) are also firm favourites. Another borderline case would be coxinha – do these count as bolinhos? Well if they’re good enough for Nigella then that’s good enough for me! I’ll leave you with some more pics I took recently from Bar do Gomes – a great bar in Santa Teresa which does especially good bolinhos.
Just moments after this photo was taken, Mrs Eat Rio and I destroyed this tranquil scene!
Bolinho de Abóbora – puréed pumpkin surrounding delicious carne seca.
Bolinho de feijão – puréed black beans surrounding shredded carne seca. An excellent drinking snack! Who’s hungry?!
Hello Tom!
All these bolinhos are delicious but I visited Salvador, the capital city of Bahia state, twice and a friend of mine said that acarajé gives indigestion so I was afraid of eating it. However,some people say that it’s a myth but I’m not very sure about it.
Hi Marcos! I’ve had acarajé quite a few times (I love it!) and it never gave me indigestion, but I think it may affect some people differently. Do you like spicy food, pimenta, etc? Whenever I’m not sure about a food, I try it anyway – if I don’t like it I can spit it out and I will know never to eat it again, but if I do like it then I’ve made a discovery that will last a lifetime! :)
That’s a good idea Tom, next time I visit Salvador I’m going to give acarajé a try. Thanks.
Oi, xará!
Good article and great photos! Did you take them yourself?
Até,
Tom
Oi, Tom! Yep, all the photos with the Eat Rio watermark are my own. When there’s food involved, poor Mrs Eat Rio has to suffer me making her to wait until I have the right shot – very frustrating when she’s hungry, but she usually forgives me ;)
I see you found Serramalte then!
Ha ha! Yes, despite my love for the Original label (still the coolest beer label I know), I have to admit that Serramalte has taken its place as top ‘normal bar’ beer. Good call Andy!
“Hmmm, does Acarajé truly belong to the bolinho family? Maybe it is more of a charismatic cousin from Bahia,”
Humm, just because Acarajé looks somewhat different than the other bolinhos you want to cast him as a non-bolinho. I shiver to think about where you stand on Acarajé marriage.
————-
Oh, and from the Nigella blog:
“In order to follow the recipe, click here, but first I must warn you that we made little baby coxinhas, as these are easier to fashion and fry, I find, as well as being infinitely cuter!”
I just love her.
Ah, the pitfalls of categorising bar snacks! If I was a politician or TV personality I’d probably have to resign now… ;)
Off topic: ahead of Sunday’s final here is very elucidating article about Brazil’s current lineup that has made my understanding of how said squad operates on the field much clearer. And you don’t have to be a soccer buff to understand it. Anyway thought I’d share it here.
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/tacticsandanalysis/id/1570?cc=5739
Interesting piece. I’m looking forward to Sunday – I don’t often put 2 honour points at risk. Vai Brasil! ;)
I am putting my points on Spain (a decision derived solely from observation as I don’t Spain to win). It is funny that, albeit her skill, I still don’t consider Spain ‘derbyworth’ – and by this I mean that matches like Brazil vs Italy, Italy vs England, Holand vs Germany (even if Holand has yet to win a WC) make up a proper derby. Spain just doesn’t have the soccer baggage that conjures an image of timelessness which would allow it to be in that select group. Regardless, currently they have the best team by far, and will probably defeat Brazil.
And Holland is spelled with two L’s (“thou shall not misspell name of nation with extremely hot chicks” is an ancient Chinese proverb that I respect).
And now I would like to (tastefully)
gloatrevel in my successful prediction of a Brazilian win. As I had hoped/suspected, Brazil managed to negate Spain’s tic-tac(tics) with their more incisive style of play (which I find infinitely more entertaining to watch). If I were a tabloid headline writer I would go with “Brazil say Tic-Tac-No”You retain your honor points Tom and acquire mine (blasphemy!). Oh well, you were right, so congrats.
I can deal with being wrong (especially since I wasn’t rooting for Spain and just thought they had a much better team); but much like Fred’s third goal buried the Spanish your Tic-Tac-No pun and the end of that last comment punished me to no end :-)
Anyway, congratulations to the Brazilian national squad. And especially to this guy:
http://grittypoet.blogspot.ch/2013/06/well-done.html
That was one hell of a goal line clearance wasn’t it? Seemed like everything went right for Brazil last night. I heard the conspiracy theories about the whole thing being fixed, but I’m not persuaded. Personally I think 11 Spanish millionaire footballers would have too much pride to throw any game…
So you’re saying there is no amount of Tic-Tac-Dough that could have persuaded the Spanish (and, as the crowd cheers on, he exits the thread with a powerful David Luizesque counter-pun).
Nice!
Ahh the joys of fried food. I tried both Coxinhas and Bolinhos de Bacalhau in a brazilian place in Lisbon and they were top notch. The variety of Bolinhos is surprising and gives a new dimension to a pub crawl
Hi Chris! Man, I’m jealous, I’d love to compare the food in Portugal with what we get here in Rio.
If were going to open a bar in Rio (something I’d love to do actually), I’d put real emphasis on the petiscos – if you get something good, people will come from miles around – just look at Aconchego Carioca!
Hey Tom,
Sera que you forgot about the bolinhos de Chuva? :)
Cheers
Raf
Hi Raf – I did indeed forget about them – foi mal :-/ I blame the omission on the fact that I’ve never actually tried these rather naughty looking doughnut-style balls. For the equally uninitiated, here’s a picture: