The recipe · 1593

Branca's yellow pot

Meat, crushed chickpeas, onions slowly browned in olive oil, and warm spices. It goes into the oven on Friday and comes out on Saturday at noon, soft and golden.

  • 6 servings
  • 30 min prep
  • 16 h in the oven

You'll need

  • 1 kg beef or mutton, in cubes
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 onions, sliced
  • 300 g dried chickpeas (or 600 g cooked)
  • 400 ml water, and salt

Spices

  • 1½ tsp black peppercorns
  • 1½ tsp coriander seed
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 2 cm fresh ginger, grated
  • 2 cm cinnamon stick and 1–2 cloves
  • Saffron if you like, a pinch

To seal the pot

  • 150 g plain flour + about 90 ml water

How to make it

  1. The day before, the chickpeas. Soak the 300 g of dried chickpeas in plenty of water for 8–12 hours. Drain, cover with fresh water and simmer gently for 1–1½ hours, until they crush easily between your fingers. Salt only at the end.Short on time? Use 600 g of cooked chickpeas, drained.
  2. The spices. Pound the pepper, coriander, cumin, cinnamon and cloves in a mortar to a coarse powder, with a few bits still visible. Add the grated ginger.For more fragrance, toast the whole spices in a dry pan for 1–2 minutes before pounding.
  3. Friday afternoon, the onions. In a clay pot or heavy casserole that can go in the oven, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Cook the onions with a pinch of salt for 15–20 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft and golden. Much of the colour comes from here.
  4. The meat. Turn up the heat, add the meat in two batches and brown it on all sides, about 8–10 minutes. Put it all back in the pot, add the spices and stir for 1 minute, until fragrant.
  5. Chickpeas and water. Mash half the chickpeas with a fork to a coarse paste and leave the rest whole. Add them all with 1 tsp salt, the saffron dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water if using, and the 400 ml of water. The liquid should sit a finger's width below the meat: moist, not drowned.
  6. Seal and bake. Mix the flour with about 90 ml of water into a firm dough. Roll a rope as long as the rim, press it on, set the lid on top and push down to seal. Before sundown, into an oven preheated to 100–110 °C.
  7. Saturday at noon. Break the seal with the tip of a knife and lift the lid. Stir: it should be thick and golden, the meat falling apart. Check the salt and serve with bread.
The story behind it
“… huã panellada de comer a qual ficava cozinhada daquella tarde pera ho dia seguinte … lançavão a carne picada na panella com azeite e cebolla e grãos e adubos … e barravão lhe o testo com massa ao redor e metiamna dentro em hum forno.”Anna Lins, 1593 · Denunciações de Pernambuco, p. 57

Two of Branca's former pupils told the Inquisition that on Saturdays the house ate a yellow dish of crushed chickpeas, chopped meat and spices (pp. 31, 57). It was cooked by Felipa, a woman Branca held in slavery. Nobody named the spices: these are the ones found in Brazil at the time. The quantities are ours.

No pork, no lard. No olive oil? Coconut oil, already made in Brazil by 1627. Sources