Mainland Brazil · Volume 40, Caatinga, Vaqueiro and the Salt-Cured Table
Tapioca com queijo coalho
Northeast Brazil, Brazil
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Tapioca com queijo coalho
Serves 4 . about 2 minutes per tapioca
Ingredients
- as available granulated cassava starch (goma), sieved and lightly salted
- as available queijo coalho, grated or sliced
- as available grated coconut, often included
Method
- Sieve and lightly salt the granulated cassava starch, then spread thin and even across a dry, unoiled, hot griddle; the heat fuses the starch into a single disc on contact, without any fat, in around a minute.
- Scatter grated or sliced queijo coalho, and often grated coconut, over half the disc.
- Fold once the cheese has softened, thirty seconds or so more, and serve immediately while the outside is still lightly crisp.
What a modern chef changes
The chapa's heat, reproduced faithfully
Rung 05
Method
- Run a Big Green Egg cast-iron plancha griddle hot and completely dry, reproducing the traditional chapa's high, even, direct heat more faithfully than most domestic hobs manage, since the crepe's whole structure depends on that fast, uniform starch-to-solid transition.
- Grill the queijo coalho separately over the same coals until it takes real colour before folding it in, so the cheese carries its own char rather than only softening from the crepe's residual heat.