Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Carne with Cabana Cachaça, Cocoa and Coffee

I think I just broke the alliteration record for this and all my other blogs.

In any event, it's always a great when I find a food recipe that includes cachaça. This time around, we've got a great-sounding recipe that features Cabana, along with cocoa and coffee. Honestly, it sounds like something Ted Allen would announce as the mystery-basket ingredients on Food Network's Chopped. 

"Your mandatory ingredients are... cachaça, coffee, cocoa nibs, and a piece of my landlord's left ear. Thirty minutes on the clock and time starts... now!"

The talking heads keep referring to Cabana as a rum, unfortunately. Alas, the category is still coalescing. 

Recipe credit goes to Chef Donna Desfor. It's a little long to quote here, so check it out over at Fox affiliate WPMT Channel 43. 

Recipe: Oysters with Caipirinha Granita

Perhaps the loneliest category on this site is the one for food recipes featuring cachaça. When I see one, I jump.

This oyster recipe from the Culinary Institute of America, featuring a caipirinha granita, reads like an episode of Chopped after the producers ran out of ideas for the secret-ingredient baskets. Nevertheless, it sounds delicious.

Fresh Oysters with Cilantro-Lime Caipirinha Granita

• Two limes, peeled, cut into wedges
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar   
• 2 tbsp. cilantro, finely chopped
• 6 oz cachaça
• 12 oysters on the half shell
• Sea salt and feshley cracked black pepper to taste
• Micro cilantro sprigs for garnish

Preparation

1. Muddle the limes, sugar and chopped cilantro in a bowl; add the cachaça, salt and pepper to the bowl and mix well.
2. Pulse the mixture in a food processor.
3. Pour mixture into a shallow pan and freeze it, scraping with a fork every hour until it's fluffy and completely frozen.
4. To serve, place a spoonful of the granita over each oyster and garnish with sprigs of micro cilantro.

Caipirinha Salmon

Just in time for July 4th, here's an incredible-sounding recipe for caipirinha salmon, courtesy of Bucky's Barbecue & Bread:

Grilling was the obvious choice, but I’ve fixed salmon the same way for the last couple of years.  Recently, I found a drink that I really like called a caipirinha, made with cachaça, a liquor made in Brazil similar to rum but made only with sugar cane. In other words, good! Add lime, sugar and ice, and you have a caipirinha, Brazil’s national drink. I thought those same flavors would go with the salmon.

I poured a bit of cachaça on the salmon, added cane sugar and lime juice, salt and pepper, and let it sit for a while as the Bubba Keg grill heated up. I also halved a couple more limes to grill to add some grilled lime at the end.

Recipe: Fresh Coconut & Cachaça Sorbet

Spent the past few days enjoying a relatively mellow Memorial Day weekend, basking in a fair share of parental adulation.

Many caipirinhas were served Sunday. Well... Gringorinhas, I call them. No limes at the ready. Only lime juice in those fruit-shaped squeezy bottles. Hey... Shaddup. "You go to war with the army you have." They were a hit nevertheless.

In any event, plenty of kin-wraught destruction all around us the following morning.

Checking in on the cachaçasphere, I offer another dessert recipe, this time brought to us by the Ceramic Canvas.

I’d never written a sorbet recipe before. But after a few tweaks (and trials), I think the resulting recipe strikes a good balance. The sorbet is light, refreshing and not too sweet. No one will be able to name the hit of cachaça - they’ll just notice something different that they can’t quite put their finger on.

The recipe looks quite involved, but the photos yield high confidence that the effort is oh-so-worth it.

Here it is, again, courtesy of the Ceramic Canvas:

This sorbet contains fresh shredded coconuts. Biting into the coconuts releases an extra hit of the natural, milky coconut flavor into the sorbet. If you prefer a more tradition sorbet without fruit just strain the shredded coconut out of the base after the steeping process. If you strain out the coconut, I recommend using a cheesecloth to squeeze out as much of the coconut juice as possible into the base before adding the cachaça and lime juice.

• 2 coconuts (apprx. 2 lbs each - see yield notes below)
• 1 cup water
• 1 gelatin pack
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup syrup
• 1.5 oz cachaça
• ½ tsp lime juice

Using nail and hammer punch three holes in each coconut to drain them of their juice (should yield about 1 cup per coconut). After ‘juicing’ the coconuts split one open to expose the inner flesh. Carefully carve out the flesh in chunks. Using a coarse grater, shred the flesh of one coconut (should yield about 2 cups in shredded coconut).  Set juice and shredded coconut aside. 

Mix milk, water, gelatin in med saucepan and let stand until gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes). Add sugar, syrup and ¾ cup of the shredded coconut. Bring mixture to a boil just to dissolve the sugar. Stir, take off heat and let coconut steep, covered, for 25 minutes.

Stir in Cachaça and lime juice. After the mixture has completely cooled, freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instruction.

Meanwhile, dry toast the remaining cup of shredded coconut in a nonstick pan over medium heat, stirring periodically until the flakes are golden brown (about 7 minutes).

Yield Notes: One 2 lb coconut yields about 1cup liquid & 2 cups shredded coconut

Recipe: Vaca Atolada ("Cow Stuck in the Mud")

One of the topics that doesn't get discussed nearly enough on this site is that of cooking with cachaça.

Here's one from The Perfect Pantry:

Vaca Atolada

• 2 lbs beef short ribs (have the butcher cut them in 2” pieces)
• 4 Tbsp cachaça [or light rum]
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• Water, as needed
• 2 Tbsp butter or lard or bacon fat
• 1-1/2 Tbsp chopped garlic
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 Tbsp annatto powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 Tbsp each chopped parsley and scallions
• Salt to taste
• Hot pepper, to taste
• 2 lbs mandioca or waxy potatoes

Wash the ribs. Put ribs in a saucepan with cachaça and lime juice and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside. Heat the butter, lard, or bacon fat in a heavy casserole. Add the garlic, the onion, and the drained ribs and sauté until browned, being sure not to burn the garlic. Add the annatto, mixing well and  water, a little at a time, to form a nice broth. Add the bay leaf, the parsley, the scallions, salt to taste, and simmer, covered until the meat is tender. Adjust the seasonings -– salt and hot pepper to taste. Meanwhile, wash, peel, and cut the mandioca (or potato) in 2” chunks and parboil in water until semi-soft. You don’t want it falling apart...yet. Drain and add to the ribs. Continue cooking until it forms a nice thick, succulent stew –- the ribs tender, the mandioca melting into the sauce. You’ll by now understand the derivation of the recipe's name! Readjust seasoning, as the mandioca will soak up the salt. Serve with garlicky rice, collards, and French-fried sweet potatoes. (Serves four.)

You'll have to work a little harder to find some of the ingredients, but it looks oh so worth it.

Cachaça & Lime Syllabub

Don't worry. It's totally okay. I didn't know what a "syllabub" was either.

Wikipedia comes to the rescue with:

Syllabub... is a traditional English dessert, popular from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. It is usually made from rich milk or cream seasoned with sugar and lightly curdled with wine or cider. The frothing cream was poured straight into a bowl containing 'Sille,' a wine that used to be made in Sillery, in France's Champagne region. 'Bub' was Elizabethan slang for a bubbling drink.

So, I bring you a version featuring our favorite ingredient, courtesy of Planet Food:

Cachaça & Lime Syllabub

Ingredients

• 5 un-waxed limes
• 20 fl oz double cream
• 4 tablespoons caster sugar
• 2½ fl oz cachaça
• Biscuits to serve

Method

Zest the limes using the fine side of a grater. Next squeeze the juice from one of limes and thinly slice the remaining ones.

Pour the cream into a large clean bowl. Add the sugar and then using a large balloon whisk beat the sugar and cream together until well combined. Fold in the Cachaca and whisk again for a couple more minutes. Finally add the lime zest and juice and whisk again until the mixture forms soft peaks.

Pour into a large glass bowl and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then remove from the freezer and place in the fridge for a further 10 minutes.

Dress with the remaining lime slices and serve immediately.

Serving: 4 - 6 servings
Preparation time: 50 minute

Banana Caramel With Cachaça

I'm starting to find more food recipes out there featuring cachaça. This one for a banana caramel dish sounds amazing:

Banana Caramel With Cachaça

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tlsp unsalted butter
• 6 ripe bananas (approx. 1lbs)
• a little bit of cinnamon powder to taste
• a little bit clove tree powder to taste
• 50 ml cachaça or cognac or kirsch

Directions

Heat the sugar until it caramelized, add butter, and gently stir.

Add bananas, and mix it well, then add cinnamon and clove tree [powder]. Keep on cooking until [mixture has] penetrated.

Add your favorite liquor, mine is cachaça, gently stir. And ready to serve.

Jalapeño Caipirinha Cupcakes

A while back my wife and I experimented with this recipe for Guinness cupcakes. They turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Far from inheriting the beer's more bitter characteristics, it made for a particularly moist treat that kept surprisingly well compared to most baked goods.

Imagine my surprise when I found someone who has delivered unto us a jalapeño caipirinha cupcake.

It only takes a 1/4 cup of cachaça. So go ahead... Pull some out of your four-barrel stash. It'll be worth it, I'm sure.