Brutality Quindim

Last week I showed you how to make the national dish of Brazil which was Feijoada, and it was absolutely Delicious and a real hit. Not to mention it was a little time consuming but overall very easy. I thought I would continue this week and finish up with a favorite dessert from South America as well. How hard could the dessert be if the main course was so easy?

Today we’ll be looking at Quindim. Quindim is a delicious little shiny top coconut dessert that will leave you either craving more or in a diabetic coma. One or the other. It uses fresh grated coconut, and just a load of eggs, sugar, a touch of vanilla and it seperates itself as it cooks into an attractive custard top and coconut bottom. Mmmmm…..

According to wisegeek the dish was originally a Portuguese baked recipe but was modified to be uniquely Brazilian…

“The source of the typical quindim recipe is believed to be, at least in part, based on traditional Portuguese baked desserts. The recipe was modified by slaves in the Bahia area of Brazil during the 17th century. The profusion of coconuts in the region during that time made coconut an integral part of the reinvented recipe, but the utilization of massive amounts of egg yolks indicate its Portuguese roots; Portuguese cookery traditionally employs substantial numbers of egg yolks. Like the Brazilian desserts fios de ovos, papo de anjo, queijadinha, and the Portuguese dessert Cocada amarela, egg yolks are the staple ingredient in any quindim recipe.”

It’s so good and popular in fact Walt Disney was so impressed with the country and this dish in particular he made a song about it in his 1944,1945 film the Three Caballeros. I don’t understand a word of the song itself but It’s all about Quindim’s I’ve been told!

In any case let’s get to the recipe. I’m going to start off by telling you the trouble I had and how you can avoid it completely. I used fresh coconuts for this recipe. Meaning I went to the store and got one of those brown little hard hairy coconuts and took it home. Let me tell you those things are the devil as you can see by the picture here. This is how I see coconuts every time I look at them now.

Luckily I had the advice from an expert so I didn’t at least get coconut water all over the place. I want to give a special and huge THANK you to Spica again and also to her mom who  is very kind and helpful. Thank you so much I appreciate your advice!

The first thing I was told to do was punch out the holes in the coconut and let the water drain out (and to keep that water for cooking later) which I did and it was very easy. Where it all went wrong was I was told to use a hammer to smash it open with it inside a bag but I didn’t have a hammer handy so I decided to watch some youtube videos of the “easy” ways to open a coconut. BAD IDEA.

I tried hacking the coconut open with a big knife. Pieces of coconut shell went flying everywhere, hitting me in the eyes. I tried tapping it along the seam with the butt of my heavy knife. The coconut just laughed at me and didn’t open at all. Finally i took half the advice about the bag and hammer and put my own Temple of Evil spin on it.

I carefully put the coconut in two bags. I walked it outside and I proceeded to smash it to bits on a rock screaming gibberish swear words at it the whole time. After I calmed myself I brought it back inside and calmly grated it for the next hour just to get a cup and a half of fresh coconut shavings. The lengths I go to to feed people!

Of course Spica’s mom also told me (and if i were smart i would have listened) that you can avoid ALL of that and just get the dried grated coconut and soak it in warm water for awhile before you use it.

The RECIPE

1) Preheat the oven to 300 and get a cupcake or muffin tray, and also a high sided pan that the muffin tray will fit in.

2) Put some water in the high sided pan so when you put the muffin tray in it it comes about halfway up the bottom of that tray. This is a cooking bath to prevent burning.

3) Take some melted butter and brush the holes in every part of your muffin tray. Throw some sugar all over the pan then tap it upside down over the sink to get rid of the excess sugar. This will make sure that it doesn’t stick in your pan after and gives it a nice sheen and a little more sugar (like it needed it!)

4) In a large mixing bowl blend well the sugar and the butter until its smooth and homogeneous.

(If you’re not sure what Homogeneous means it means you should make it gay. Just kidding it means to make it all consistent. No lumps or any such thing. )

5) Mix into that one at a time your egg yolks and then your single full egg. It should be a bright yellow easy flowing liquid now.

6) Mix in your vanilla and coconut extracts. It’s very important you mix this well also.

7) Fold in your coconut and mix that up one last time.

8) Fill each hole in your muffin pan with the mixture. Right to the top of each. Do as many in one shot as you can.

9) Pop the muffin pan, inside the water bath pan I talked about earlier, then pop both in the oven for about 15 minutes or until it’s somewhat firm to the touch and there’s a slight brown-ish crust on it.

10) Take them out and don’t you dare take them out of the damn pan for 15 minutes until they’ve completely cooled! To get each out slide a knife around the edge of each and they should pop out right easy. Turn them upside down (the crust becomes a nice bottom)  and you should have yellow shiney delicious goodness!

Thank you again for all your help my South American friends!