Match of the week

Moqueca and Caiprinhas

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on November 17 2008 at 07:34

Last week our local tapas bar, Ocean, held a Brazilian evening with a talented local Bristol singer Frances Butt who is really into Latin music. (So much so that she has issued an album called The Girl from Wolverhampton - where she grew up though obviously not where her soul lies . . .)

The chef, Stuart Seth, cooked up a simple supper of two dishes a feijoada (pork, beef and black bean stew) and moqueca (seafood stew) which were served with caipirinhas, the addictively good Brazilian cocktail of cachaça and lime. Cachaça is the Brazilian equivalent to rum.

It wasn't particularly good with the feijoada - I doubt if it was intended to be - but brilliant with the moqueca which was flavoured with tomato, coriander and hot pepper (though it wasn't overly hot). I don't know if it's authentic to pair the two (perhaps our Brazilian members will tip me off?) but it was certainly stupendously good. Wine, I suspect, wouldn't have worked as well though a crisp Sauvignon Blanc would have probably been a reasonable pairing

A really nice idea for an informal supper. With music, of course . . .

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