The Caipirinha
In honor of Mother’s Day, I figured it was time to share with my fellow fellows the secret of the caipirinha. Friends, there is no finer drink on God’s Green Earth, and no surer way of rendering your beloved most amiable. In fact, caipirinha means “dang, you look fine! Yes! Yes!” in Portuguese. Really. Trust me on this.
Anyhow, let’s begin:
First off, one needs to gather the ingredients. For each drink you need a suitable Lowball glass (due to slow production times I was only able to have one suitable glass), 1 lime, ice, a finely-ground sugar (I use this organic sugar from Florida. Ok, call me a commie, but it really has a wonderful flavor (yes, sugar with flavor); I blame THS for introducing me to this), and, most importantly, some cachaça, which is a Brazilian rum that, by itself, tastes like a cross between paint thinner and used nail polish remover, but in a caipirinha it is simply divine. I’ve got out a bunch of different cachaça brands for illustrative purposes:
You need 1 lime per drink. Cut the lime into eights
and place in the glass thusly
Now take your wooden spoon and mash those puppies up! Release those juices! Die, Lime Scum!
Now fill the glass with ice.
Fill the glass to within a finger of the top with cachaça.
Add commie sugar to taste. I mean that. Some people like them not too sweet, while others (like me) like them all Jim Jones Kool-Aid-y. Stir well!
Come to Papa!
For parties I’ve made pitchers of them, and they’ve been big hits.
Enjoy!
And remember, there’s no reason to drink responsibly when you’re home!
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
May 8, 2005 10:14 pm
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Sniff. That is the…sniff…most bee-yoo-tiful thing…sniff…I’ve ever seen.
What? No bourbon? Damn commie.
American Capitalist thinking rearing it’s ugly head. Trust moi, Mr. Summers. It’s the nectar of the Gods. (made better, and better for you, by the inclusion of organic sugar from Florida)
Oh. And I’m putting Bingster in for a Pulitzer for the photography.
The pics did come out quite luverly, didn’t they? As did the caipirinha, I might add.
*Sniff* This is the most beautiful blog post I have ever seen…
Next time you’re out we’ll have many, m’dear!
Caipirinha – the Thinking Drinker’s Drink. Next time we’re at Jose Tejas I’ll have to ask for one and see if they squint funny at me. (Pronunciation isn’t my strong suit.)
Ky-peer-een-ya
And Fly, they’re sweet and go great with…oh, let’s say…BUTTERCREAM.
Heheheheheh. Believe me, Ms. Sister, I’d cook them myself. The recipe isn’t terribly difficult, but you have to be careful with the heat and the consistency of the batter or you get creme flats, and that’s just no good. I haven’t been able to pull it off yet.
Try your Caipirinha with FEIJOADA, a Brazilian black bean & pork stew:
INGREDIENTS
1 lb of varied pork sausages (prefer smoked sausages)
1 lb of pork tenderloin
some slices of bacon
1 can of black beans (15.5Oz)
2 tbs vegetable oil
salt, garlic, chopped onions and bay leaves (bay leaves give a special taste to feijoada)
PREPARE
Feijoada is made with black beans and pork meats.
You can use a can of beans already cooked or learn how to cook dried beans here.
Add black beans to a medium-sized pot with 2 tbs oil, salt, garlic, chopped onions and about 6 bay leaves.
Cook for about 15 minutes in med heat and set aside.
In a separated panfry, cook cubes of pork tenderloin and slices of bacon with salt, garlic.
Add all the sausages sliced and stir medium-heat until dry all the water.
Add the cooked meat to the pan with the black beans and your feijoada is ready!
Cook your feijoada more 10 minutes to meat soak in the black beans. You can add some pepper sauce to your feijoada at this point.
Hint: to make the feijoada creamy, liquefy 1/2 cup of black beans in the blender and add to the feijoada.
SERVE:
Before serving the “Feijoada”, you can serve a caipirinha as an appetizer.
Feijoada is a main dish frequently served with white rice, collard greens and seasoned manioc flour (farofa).
To follow the “Feijoada”, we serve orange segments as a dessert.
(From http://www.cookbrazil.com/feijoada.htm)
‘s good!
It was a “sweep the kitchen floor” kind of stew (actually, “sweep the packing house floor” would be more accurate)… I’ve heard that the basis for the stew was the unsalable scraps that the employees scounged to take home, so the stew varied from batch to batch. Different recipies call for salt pork or ham. Kielbasa are good. Mix in some beef stew meat, or even some chicken. But the main portion should be different types of pork.
leelu, I adore uma feijoada completa. The story I’ve heard is that feijoada was slave food. The slaves were given all the left over pig scraps: ears, nose, tail and other various bits, and they would just simmer it for hours in the black beans like you describe. It is simply heavenly tasting. Everytime I’m in Brazil I just go nuts on the various beans they have. They have none of the sickly-sweet baked beans we have here. Farofa is nice on rodizio too.
Damn, I’m hungry now.
That sounds well worth whipping up!
Bingley’s the black bean King of North America, leelu. If they’re in it, he’s on it.
When Homer said, “MMMMM….snouts….” I guess he knew better than we suspected.
I’ve actually cooked something like this almost by accident – no beans, but a mess of vegetables and some kielbasa in broth. It wasn’t bad, but it turned out more like a soup than a stew, so I think I did something wrong. This recipe looks better. Something tells me a new entree may show up at the next movie night.
Mr. B…
I think you’re correct about feijoda’s origins. What intrigues me is the number of differnece recipies you can find just by googling on the word “feijoada”.
Nightfly…enjoy!
Make sure you have it with the rice & collard greens. Rice in a rice cooker, greens steamed in a bit of chicken broth. Tapatio on the side for flavor enhancement (and sinus draining).
I guess since it’s sort of a bean-and-anything-I-got-lying-around recipe there would be a lot of variations leelu.
Oddly enough, it doesn’t vary that much within Brazil; it’s pretty standard every where you go, unlike muqueque, which has very big regional differences.
Oh, goodness – we blighters LOVE the Caipirinha! Pete started making ’em a couple of summers ago, and they are the ideal libation for a warm summer evening. Not so much a winter drink, to my mind, but to each his own. Good on yer, Mr. Bingley! Any man who can make a mean Caipirinha is okay by me. 😉
Hi kelley! You’re right, they’re definately a warm weather drink…and as it’s got to be warm somewhere I figure what the hey!
Carnival of the Recipes
I, Boudicca, am the hostess this week of the Carnival of the Recipes. Take a look at the recipes? I read through all of them? plus I perused the blogs. With over 30 entries, we have not only excellent participation,…
Any man who can make a mean Caipirinha is okay by me. 😉
kelley, first a warm swilly welcome! Secondly, this is the internet, where everything is not as it seems. Take Bingley, for example. A pretty face + a way with words + a yummy cold green drink = loungelizard. Other than that, bottoms up!
due to slow production times I was only able to have one suitable glass
Oh you miserable puke. I just noticed. Must be the paint fumes.
I just noticed.
Hahahahahaa. Yep, must be them thar fumes.
The Peruvian equivalent of this is the Pisco Sour, also highly recommended.
All Latin American countries have some sort of white liquor. They almost invariably taste like acetone, and they all mix beautifully. In Colombia they have aguardiente (lit. burning water) and in Costa Rica it’s called Guaro.
Piscos are very yum David. I spent a week in Lima one time drinking Piscos and eating ceviche.
Heaven.