Destination
Rio de Janeiro
The story
Moqueca is Bahia's flagship dish: a shallow stew of white fish and shrimp cooked slowly in coconut milk, dendê (red palm oil), fresh tomato, sweet peppers, onion, garlic and a lot of coriander. Cooked traditionally in a black clay pot (panela de barro) crafted by the artisan women of Vitória in Espírito Santo, served straight to the table with a bowl of steaming white rice, farofa and pirão (a thick sauce made from the moqueca liquid whisked into cassava flour). Bright orange from the dendê, fragrant with coconut and coriander, and unmistakably Bahian.
Method
In a bowl, toss the fish and shrimp with the lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate 15 to 20 minutes. Don't marinate longer, the lime will start to cook the fish (into a ceviche).
In a wide clay pot or heavy shallow pan, warm 2 tbsp of the dendê over medium heat. Layer half the onion rings across the bottom, then half the tomato and half the peppers. Scatter over half the coriander stalks. Season lightly with salt.
Arrange the marinated fish and shrimp on top of the vegetable layer in a single layer.
Cover with the remaining onion, tomato, peppers and coriander stalks. Drizzle over any remaining marinade juice.
Pour the coconut milk evenly over the top. Add the remaining tablespoon of dendê. Season the whole pot lightly with salt.
Cover with a lid and cook over medium-low heat 15 to 20 minutes, until the fish is opaque and the shrimp are pink. Shake the pot gently once or twice to distribute the sauce, but don't stir: you'll break up the fish.
Off the heat, scatter over most of the chopped coriander leaves (save a small handful for the plate). Ladle into shallow bowls straight from the pot, spoon rice alongside and pass farofa, pirão and hot sauce at the table.
Tips
- Dendê is what makes moqueca baiana. Substituting olive oil gives you a fine coconut-fish stew, but not the deep orange colour, savoury base note or scent that defines the dish. Sold at Brazilian and West African grocers.
- Firm-flesh fish only. Delicate fish (sole, plaice, cod) falls apart. Grouper, snapper, halibut, monkfish and hake all hold up. Skin-on fillets keep together even better.
- Never stir once the fish is in. Shake the pot gently to move the sauce around. Stirring breaks the fish into shreds and the visual of whole pieces of fish in coconut broth is half the reason the dish exists.
- A clay pot (panela de barro) is traditional and worth buying if you make moqueca often. A heavy cast iron or enamelled Dutch oven is a fine substitute; a thin pan is not.
- Pirão is the bonus round. Ladle 200ml of the finished moqueca liquid into a small saucepan, bring back to a simmer, and whisk in 3 tbsp cassava flour until it thickens to a thick porridge. Serve alongside the rice as a second sauce.
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