Chapter XXV - Mexilhoes com Molho de Coco and Why Bras Cubas Can Confess His Sins So Freely

"Frankness is the prime virtue of a dead man."

Book:  The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Recipes:  The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz

Mexilhoes com Molho de Coco

(Mussels in Coconut Cream Sauce)

1 lb mussels
2 tbsp oil
1/4 each onion, green, red, and yellow bell peppers
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
1 plum tomato, peeled, seeded and diced
2 tbsp chopped cilantro for garnish (optional)


Rinse and scrub the mussels, debeard and discard any shells that are cracked or will not close.

In a large pan, saute the vegetables in the oil over medium heat until just tender, about 3 minutes.  Add the garlic and saute another minute.  Add the mussels and wine, cover and simmer until all the shells open (about 5 minutes).  Discard any shells that have not opened.  Remove the mussels and keep warm in a covered bowl.  Bring the remaining sauce to a boil and add the coconut milk and salt and pepper to taste.  Return the mussels to the pan, add the tomatoes, and heat through.  Serve with crusty bread for dipping.

I take no credit for this meal.  The only job I had was to scrub and debeard the mussels.  Jay took care of everything because I've been sick all weekend.  He even did the dishes while I fell asleep on the couch.  The soup was a great soup for a sicky because of the illusion of comfort food creaminess without the actual dairy.  Thank you, Jay!

About the book:

Bras Cubas has this to say about reflecting on your life after your death:  "The gaze of public opinion, that sharp and judgmental gaze, loses its virtue the moment we tread the territory of death. I’m not saying that it doesn’t reach here and examine and judge us, but we don’t care about the examination or the judgment. My dear living gentlemen and ladies, there’s nothing as incommensurable as the disdain of the deceased."  This is why he can be so blase about all his early profligacy.  More on that to follow, but right now, I'm still sick and my bed is calling to me. 

Chapter XXV - Marinated Hangar Steak, Manioc with Sauteed Onions, and Napoleon Makes a Belated Appearance to Seguee Between Russian and Brazilian Literature

"I went about those days with a new rapier my godfather had given me on Saint Anthony’s Day and, quite frankly, I was more interested in the rapier than in Bonaparte’s fall. I’ve never forgotten that. I’ve never stopped thinking to myself that my rapier has always been greater than Napoleon’s sword."

Book:  The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Recipes: The Brazilian Table by Roberts and Roberts
             The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz

Marinated Hangar Steak

1 medium onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 tsp corriander
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup Cachaça
1/2 cup olive oil
1 lb hangar steak
Salt and Pepper to taste


Marinate the steak for 1 to 2 days.  Grill for to preferred doneness.  

  
Manioc with Sauteed Onions

2 lbs Manioc (Yucca)
6 tbsp butter
2 cups julienned onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

Peel the manioc and cut into cubes.  Boil in salted water until tender.  While the manioc is boiling, saute the onions in butter over medium low heat, do not let them brown.  Remove the manioc from the pan and drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid.  Mix the manioc with the onions to coat with butter.  Add the reserved liquid a little at a time until the mixture is moist.  Salt and pepper to taste.  

Here are some things that I learned about steak.  The Pathmark sometimes has hangar steaks, but not this time, so I picked the steak that looked closest to it, a "London Broil."  I bypassed the skirt steak thinking I would "do what the recipe says." According to Wikipedia, London Broil is not a "cut" of meat.  It's a method of cooking the meat.  Apparently, Pathmark isn't aware of this, or they are aware, and they are trying to get rid of some crappier cut of meat under the disguise of "London Broil."  Whatever cut I got, it was terribly tough.  And that after marinating it overnight (in rum, not Cachaca - still haven't found any - local liquor store man - "we're still out, but keep checking back!).  And there is no way that red, juicy meat was overcooked.  The lesson:  Always buy a skirt steak. 

At least the manioc was good, probably because kitchen helper Mindy made it.  And can you ever really go wrong with asparagus?   It's been on sale a lot around here, that's why it makes so many appearances.

I also made some Pao de Queijo, but I didn't get the right flour so they didn't come out that great.  Didn't stop us from devouring them, but I'm not going to include the recipe here until I've perfected it.

About the book:

Just when you thought "she's finished War and Peace!  At least we won't have to hear about Napoleon any more..."  And yet, here he is cropping up again as a symbol of class conflict.  A seven year old Bras Cubas is not impressed with Napoleon.  But his family is surely celebrating the great man's downfall (his first one).  Of course in a colonial city where the wealthy are profiting off the poor, the rich Cubas family would have to throw a grand affair of a dinner to celebrate Napoleon's defeat.  And of course, our young rapscallion is more interested in his rapier and his dessert than he is in politics. 

Epilogue - Bacalhau a Gomes Sa, Asparagus com Molho de Echallote e Salsinha and Predictably, Your Treasure is Never Where You Think It Will Be

"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”

Book:  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Recipes:  The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz

Bacalhau a Gomes Sa 

(Cod with Fingerling Potatoes and Onions)

3/4 pounds of fingerling potatoes, sliced into rounds and boiled until just tender
5 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
3 large hard-boiled eggs, sliced into rounds
1/4 cup Kalamata olives, cut in half
1 lb fresh cod (I used 3 fillets)
3 tbsp fresh chives, chopped


Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large skillet over medium low heat, add the onions, stirring frequently until they are tender, sweet, and translucent (you are not caramelizing these so watch them carefully), about 10 to 15 minutes.  

Preheat the oven to 350 and oil a baking dish.  Layer your onions, potatoes, and eggs in the bottom of the dish.  Place your cod fillets on top and sprinkle your olives over everything.  I don't care for olives, so substituted capers instead.  Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the whole dish and season with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven until it is just cooked, about 12-15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve with chives sprinkled on top. 

Apart from substituting capers for olives, there is one other change that I would make to this recipe:  I would cover the whole baking dish in aluminum foil.  The fish was delicious, and the mix of flavors was really intriguing, but the underside of the fish, which had the moisture from the onions, eggs, and potatoes, was far tastier than the top of the fish, which only got a light sprinkling of olive oil and came out a little dry.

Asparagus com Molho de Echallote e Salsinha

1 lb asparagus
3 tbsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 slice of bacon, finely chopped
2 small shallots, finely chopped
1 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp butter, cold, cut into pieces
Pepper to taste
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Add the salt and baking soda to a pot of water and bring to a boil.  Add the asparagus and cook until just tender.  Immediately transfer the asparagus to a cold water bath to stop the cooking.  Remove from the cold water and dry on paper towels.


Cook the bacon in a large frying pan over medium high heat until it is crispy, about 2 minutes.  Lower the heat and add the shallots, stirring frequently and being careful not to brown them, about 2 minutes.  Add the stock and reduce by half, about 5 minutes.

Lift the pan a few inches above the heat and shake it back and forth while adding the butter, a piece at a time.  The butter will melt and the shaking with help it become incorporated into the sauce.  Return the asparagus to the pan and reheat it, being careful not to cook it any further.  Add the parsley and Parmesan and serve immediately.  

 
Thank you kitchen helper Julie for being a recipe stickler!  I would have thrown all the ingredients together in a baking dish under the broiler.  I would also have used at least 3 slices of bacon (how can you eat just 1?).  And I would never have "shaken the pan a few inches above the heat" until Julie said, "let's just do what the recipe calls for..."  So we did.  And it was delicious.  Under the broiler, the flavors never would have merged together so well, and adding extra bacon would have made the recipe so salty as to be almost inedible.  As it was, it was a perfect complement to our cod dish and a lesson learned about being lazy.

About the book:

It's a fable.  A fairly simplistic, easy to understand fable.  Don't give up on your dreams.  Your treasure is out there if you are willing to test yourself to get it. Oh, and surprise, it's never where, or what you thought it would be, so don't overlook it out of carelessness or demean it because it's not what you thought you wanted.

The Alchemist is a sweet book.  It's a quick read and it's somewhat repetitive.  There are a great many lessons about the language of the world and alchemy being about something greater than turning lead into gold.  You will never succeed if that is all you are hoping alchemy will teach you.  It's about taking base things and making them better.  That's everyone's Personal Legend, ultimately; to be better, which ought to be obvious, because nobody willfully says, "I want to make my life worse."  Sadly there are those who do make their lives worse, seemingly willfully, but of course, they don't see it that way.

My questions about the book revolve around this:  If the Arab from the desert has the same dream, in reverse, as the boy has, doesn't that mean he should have found his treasure where the boy was digging by the Pyramids?  I guess he didn't follow his dream so the sands of the desert didn't conspire to help him.

My other question is more historical and theoretical.  The treasure that the boy finds is "the spoils of a conquest that the country had long ago forgotten, and that some conquistador had failed to tell his children about."  Does that mean it was some conquistador's failed Personal Legend?  Was it a successful Personal Legend for him but a failed one for some Brazilian Ameridian or Arawak tribal leader?  Shouldn't that Conquistador's ancestor have recovered that treasure as part of his Personal Legend?  Or better, the ancestors of the conquered tribesmen?  Perhaps there weren't any left.

There were Spanish conquistadors in Brazil, I looked it up.  Is that slim connection to Brazil all that's intended in this book; that a young man can profit off of the slaughter of indigenous peoples because it was written by "the hand that writes everything?"  Is that really the way Personal Legends are supposed to work?  Is that Coelho's idea of "making everything better through love?" 

Maybe if he'd found his flock of sheep there, I would have been more content.  I certainly didn't expect it to be real treasure because the boy had learned that he did not need gold and jewels to be rich, successful, or happy.   I'm not very satisfied with the ending of the book.

Part 2 - Glinha Moreninha and Paulo Coelho's Short Novel or Long Fable

"Ever since he had been a child, he had wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man’s sins."

Book:  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Recipes:  The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz

Glinha Moreninha

(Chicken Braised with Caramelized Onions)

4 whole chicken legs, cut into legs and thighs (I just used thighs)
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 cup Madeira wine
3 cups chicken stock
2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley


Wipe the chicken with a paper towel.  Season with salt and pepper and brown in olive oil over medium high heat, about 4 minutes per side.  If you were feeling "healthy" and trimmed the fat off your chicken, and this caused your chicken skin to separate from your chicken meat, and this caused your chicken meat to stick to the pan, learn your lesson about "healthy," remove your now skinless chicken to a bowl, deglaze the pan with just a little sweet white wine, strain through a sieve, and reserve.


If your fatty, crispy skinned, delicious chicken didn't stick, just remove it to a bowl, turn the heat to medium-low, and add the onions.  Cook the onions until they caramelize, stirring frequently, about 25-30 minutes.  The book says low heat, which will take much, much longer; cooking guru Jerilyn assures me that you can get it done in 25 minutes over medium low without burning them.  If you see the edges start to burn, the book says you can add a teaspoon of water to the pan.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.  Deglaze with the Madeira and reduce almost completely.  Add the stock and bring to a boil. 

Return the chicken to the pan with any juices from the bowl.  Braise over very low heat for 2 hours, with the pan partly covered (if the sauce is too thin, remove the cover).  Add the tomatoes (I only had one, and it wasn't as ripe as it could have been - using 2 very ripe ones would have made the recipe a little less brown), season with salt and pepper, and garnish with parsley.  Serve with rice. 

Sigh.  This recipe, though it smelled absolutely divine, turned into a near disaster.  I forgot to turn the heat down.  Many years ago, I learned the best braising trick ever; guaranteed to make even your beef come out tender, and it works like a charm every time.  Boil with the lid on for 45 minutes and the lid off for an hour.  I thought it would save me 15 minutes.  I left it to boil with the lid on, forgot to reduce the heat, and blogged my last Russian blog.  It scorched the chicken and onions on the bottom of the pan.  


I nearly cried and threw it all away.  Then I told myself to just taste it and see whether all the chicken had absorbed the scorched flavor.  It hadn't.  I cut off the blackened parts, scraped out the few unburnt onions, and started the sauce from scratch.  Unfortunately, it was already 8:00 on a work night and I was out of onions.  I added some scallions that were wilting in my fridge for flavor and gently simmered the sauce.  I steamed my rice with mushroom bouillon in the water and broiled asparagus with butter, garlic, lemon, and almond slivers.  I was fearful that this time I really would have to pay up on my offer to order a pizza in case dinner sucked. 


The chicken, far from being dried out by its scorching, was falling off the bone almost as though I'd pulled it.  It was delicious and if I'm not mistaken, the leftovers were scarfed down the very next afternoon.  I know I enjoyed mine at work during lunch.  Of course, I think it would have been far more authentic if I'd managed to remember 2 important rules of cooking, namely, don't put your heat too high, and don't get distracted.  


About the book:


Paulo Coelho's novel reads like a fable.  The character is "the boy."  He is on his quest for his life's dream, his "Personal Legend."  He meets many people who help him on his way because, he learns, the whole world conspires to assist anyone who is truly looking for their personal legend.  He has already left the seminary school, where his parents wished he would become something grand; he has sold his sheep and left off his shepherding, where he had the freedom to wander Andalusia; he has abandoned his job as assistant to a seller of crystals, where he made enough money to buy double the sheep of his former flock and a license to import foreign wares; and now he has left behind his love in the desert, because she understands about Personal Legends and would be ashamed to think that she had ever held him back.  


In the process, rather than learning of the world instead of learning of god, he learns to know god through the sacrifices of the world, "we are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”


He also learns the lessons of life and death, "'I’m alive,'  he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. 'When I’m eating, that’s all I think about. If I’m on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other. Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.'"  I like what he says about war and human nature.  It makes a nice segue from War and Peace and parallel's Tolstoy's theories of determinism.  


Somehow, because this book seems so much like a fable to me right now, I feel as though it is simple and straightforward and therefore my discussion of it seems simplistic to me.  I have a feeling that it will only be when I've finished the book that I will have more thoughtful things to say about it.  That should be tomorrow, as I'm already 90% through it.  It's a very short novel. 

I was also more than a little disappointed that not only is the novel not set in Brazil, it's not even set in Portugal.


As promised, here are 2 of the next Brazilian books that I'll be reading:  
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Iracema by Jose de Alencar

Book 14 - Chapter 12 - Khndzorov Tolma, Nigvziani Badrijani, and a Few Insights on Happiness and Suffering

"While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom."

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter

Khndzorov Tolma

(Apples stuffed with Ground Beef)

8 medium apples
3-4 tbsp butter
2 onions finely chopped
1/4 cups ground beef
1 bunch each parsley and cilantro
Sweet paprika, salt, and pepper to taste
2 cups boiled rice (I used cooked pearled barley)
2 very ripe tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth

Carefully cut the tops off the apples, and using a spoon, core them, and scrape out some of the apple flesh to make room for the stuffing.  Reserve the apple flesh.

  

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Saute the onions until they start to become translucent.  Add the ground beef, herbs and spices and cook through, adding the reserved apple at the end.  Mix with the rice or barley.  Use the mixture to fill the apples and replace the apple tops.

Puree the tomatoes in a food processor and run through a sieve to remove seeds.  Arrange the apples in a saucepan with their tops on and pour the tomato puree and broth over them.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until the apples become tender but do not fall apart. 

Nigvziani Badrijani

1 large eggplant
Salt
Oil for frying (I actually roasted mine in the oven)
11/2 cups of finely chopped walnuts
2-3 cloves of garlic
Khmeli Suneli (spice mixture of saffron, fenugreek, and corriander - I didn't have anything even approximately close to this mixture)
2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Cut the eggplant lengthwise into thin slices.  salt each slice and cover it for an hour to draw out the moisture.  Drain and press the remaining liquid from the eggplant (I made this recipe after work and skipped this step).  Fry teh eggplant in hot oil on both sides, remove from the pan and leave to cool (or you could just roast it in the oven).  Dump the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and run it until you have a thick paste.  I didn't have most of the spices for this, so I used a lot of extra cilantro, which made my paste a rather pleasant green color; in the cookbook, the saffron made it a rather pleasant yellow color.  Spread the paste on the eggplant slices and fold them in half so the skin is on the outside.  Let them sit at room temperature for about an hour to let the flavors blend (I skipped this part too, but the leftovers did taste better than the ones I ate right away.)

I was a little hesitant about apples and tomato broth, but in fact it was delicious.  After the uncooked garlic yogurt experience, I was also a bit hesitant of the eggplant, so for the second batch, I put the spread on first, then roasted it.  It didn't make a very appreciable difference except that the pleasing green color turned brown.  These were both good recipes, it was a lot of work to core the apples so carefully, which is why there are only 4 of them in the photo.  The rest of the filling is in my fridge waiting to be steamed into the rest of the apples, which are in my fruit bowl.

About the book:

Pierre has finally been rescued!  By our lost friend Denisov!  But while a prisoner of the French he has learned some powerful insights about his own choices in life; he thinks, "that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to pieces."  He has even learned to cope with his sore feet, much in the same way that young Rostov has learned to cope with his fear of death during a battle, Pierre simply thinks about other things.  


Rostov's younger brother, Petya, did not learn his older brother's discipline in war.  He did not listen to Denisov before engaging in a mercenary, pointles battle against the French troops, not to defeat them, but to take supplies from them which they were wholly ready to surrender.  He rushed into a token resistence and was shot through the head.  This episode, of course, will be used to highlight my next post where I will take up Kutuzov and his experience of the "glory" of war.  Look for that blog post later this afternoon.

Book 12 - Chapter 15 - Treska Zapechonnaya v Moloke and Pierre Examines His Metaphysical Soul

"And farther still, beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its faraway depths. 'And all that is me, all that is within me, and it is all I!' thought Pierre. 'And they caught all that and put it into a shed boarded up with planks!' He smiled, and went and lay down to sleep beside his companions."

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter 

Treska Zapechonnaya v Moloke

(Cod in Cream Sauce)

To poach the fish:

1 1/4 cups hot milk
2 tbsp butter
2 onions, sliced
1 3/4 lb cod fillet, cut into small portions
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 cups milk, reserved from poaching the fish
1 egg yolk
Salt to taste

Heat the milk to almost boiling, add the butter to the pan.  Add the fish and onions and poach for 20 minutes.  Remove fish and onions (if you like your onions more thoroughly cooked, you can separate them from the fish and saute them a bit in the sauce butter) and reserve milk mixture.

When the fish is almost ready, melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat, add the flour to make a roux.  Add the milk mixture and stir over the heat until it is thickens.  Add the sugar and the egg yolk, stirring constantly.  Return the fish to the sauce to heat it through.  Serve with steamed green beans and garlic roasted potatoes.

This was a delicious recipe, quick and simple, and I didn't even have a student crisis that caused me to burn my potatoes.  I omitted the sugar because I don't like things too sweet and I maybe added a little less salt because my mom is visiting, and she doesn't like a lot of salt in her food (I used the shaker to add extra to my plate while I was eating it).  I think this was the real recipe for that "Quick" Chicken that I made back in January that was so eggy.  

About the book:

After living in the POW camp for 4 months, Pierre has lost all his weight and all his fear of the French.  They are treated rather well, in fact, and he personally is given great distinction because he speaks French so well.  It is only on the orders to march, that he encounters again that compulsion he has learned to recognize, "'There it is!... It again!...' said Pierre to himself, and an involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face, in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled people against their will to kill their fellow men—that force the effect of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to try to escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to wait and endure."

He is not afraid.  He thinks about his soul and what the French tried to do to him by locking him up in a "shed boarded up with planks."  He smiles at this because he has realized his place in the world, his soul's connection to everything around him.  And he has realized that he cannot be contained by loosely hammered, half-scorched planks scavenged from the wreckage of Moscow.

I was thinking about this and about myself and the people that we know and the ways in which we behave toward each other.  Sometimes we are the "forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance."  Sometimes we are the planks used to hold other souls back.  We don't see it this way at all, but all the same, society always operates in this way.  We think sometimes we are doing what's best, when in fact we are locking ourselves up with the planks.