Variations · 1/5

Variation · manioc

Manioc pot

The same pot, sealed with tapioca-starch dough and served with crisp beijus instead of bread. Very Pernambuco.

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

You'll need

  • 1 kg beef or mutton, in cubes
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 onions, sliced
  • 600 g cooked chickpeas
  • 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

Seal

  • 150 g sweet tapioca starch (polvilho doce)
  • 80 ml boiling water + a little cold water

Beijus

  • 300 g hydrated tapioca (goma de tapioca)
  • Toasted manioc flour, if you like

How to make it

  1. The day before, soak and cook the chickpeas until soft (or use cooked ones). Pound the spices in a mortar to a coarse powder.
  2. Friday afternoon, the pot. In a heavy ovenproof casserole, cook the onions in the oil over medium-low heat for 15–20 minutes, until golden. Turn up the heat, brown the meat in two batches, add the spices and stir 1 minute. In go the chickpeas (half mashed), 1 tsp salt and the water, which should sit a finger below the meat.
  3. The starch dough. Put the tapioca starch in a bowl and pour the boiling water over it in one go, stirring with a spoon: it scalds into a paste. When cool enough to touch, knead in cold water a spoonful at a time until smooth and soft, like play dough. Roll a rope, press it round the rim and set the lid on top.If it cracks it's too dry: wet your fingers and smooth it.
  4. Before sundown, into an oven preheated to 100–110 °C. The starch seal bakes pale and hard.
  5. Friday morning or Saturday, the beijus. Crumble the tapioca between your fingers and push it through a sieve. Heat a dry pan over medium heat and sift in a thin layer, about 20 cm across. In about a minute it sets and loosens: turn it. For a crisp beiju like those of 1587, keep turning over low heat for 4–5 minutes, until dry and lightly golden. Cool on a rack.Toasted farinha: stir the manioc flour in a dry pan for 5–8 minutes, until it smells toasty.
  6. Saturday at noon, break the seal with a knife, stir and serve with the beijus, and the farinha for sprinkling into the broth.
The story behind it

In Pernambuco, manioc was the bread. A witness in 1593 called tapiocas “ho mantimento comum desta terra em lugar de pães”, the common food of this land in place of bread (Denunciações, p. 80). Gabriel Soares de Sousa describes the beijus of 1587, “muito seccas e torradas”, very dry and toasted.

Never eat raw cassava. Use ready-made starch and tapioca, or sweet cassava. Beijus from the root · Sources