Moqueca
By: Ricardo S Leite
Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009 - 10:35am

Ingredients




600 grams white, non-greasy fish, cut into 4 fillet steaks
200 mls coconut milk reduction (from 500ml, reduce until past half of the pan)
600 mls fish stock (fumet) or shimp stock
300 grams sliced bell peppers (red, green, yellow),
sprigs of fresh coriander or parsley
1 clove garlic, chopped,
5 tablespoons palm oil
2 large white onions, cut into thin slices
salt and pepper to taste.
2 tomatoes concasse (without skin and seeds, diced large)

Preparation

1 Add the Palm oil in a heavy-based pan, fry the onions, add the Bell Peppers, tomatoes and Garlic right after until is soft (don't let it get colour), add the stock and let it boil, add the coconut milk and adjust the flavours with salt and pepper, let it boil. 2 After boiling, get your fish (already marinated with some salt and pepper) and cook inside the mix, poaching until is cooked but pay attention to not overcook, otherwise it will falls apart (usually, it takes around 6 mins.to cook depending on the pot, stove and high heat). 3 Serve in the same cooking pot or tranfer carefully to a deep serving dish, toss some coriander leaves (tear with your hands) right before serving.

About


 Serve with white rice and manioc flour.  If you want, you can add shrimps or crab to this recipe. This recipe is tipycal from the Brazilian North region, from Bahia where the Palm oil is largely used.  It has a very different and specific flavour, I recommend using Coriander to add a fresh note to the Coconut milk and keep an eye to not let the fish overcook, I rather have it undercooked. There's another Moqueca, the Capixaba (from Espirito Santo) Version that uses loads more of seafood, and no coconut milk. Enjoy.