We are fascinated by this recipe for acaça, a Brazilian dish that is served with meat or seafood, like polenta. But acaça uses rice flour instead of polenta's cornmeal, and the flour is cooked in coconut milk until thick and creamy. Doesn't that sound delicious? Have you ever tried this?
This version of acaça, which is served with shrimp bobo (a stew of shrimp, yucca, and fish stock, and coconut milk) is adapted from The Brazilian Table, by Yara Castro Roberts and Richard Roberts. It is served like polenta or rice, as a bed for the stew. In fact, the recipe calls it a "coconut-rice flour polenta".
We are so fascinated by this new (to us, anyway) dinner starch. It is obviously gluten-free, and it might be a great dish for those who eat gluten-free. It looks incredibly creamy, too; the rice flour is whisked into a mixture of coconut milk and whole milk, and then finished off with olive oil and cream.
Do you know anything about this dish? Is this a standard Brazilian dish, or is it more of a reinterpretation by the cookbook authors? We have got to try this out, and soon!
• Get the recipe: Acaça at Gourmet, from Adventures With Ruth
Related: Doce de Abóbora: Sweet Pumpkin Compote
(Image: Marcus Nilsson/Gourmet)
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This sounds and looks amazing. I love anything coconut-y. However, is there anything I could sub for the palm oil in the shrimp bobo recipe? Palm oil is so high in saturated fat, so I'd rather not use it.
Acaça isn't a standard brazilian dish because it's unknown for the most people in Brazil. Acaça is a ritualistic food from a religion that came from Africa, candomblé. It is offered to orixás in small portions envolved by a leaf.
tradukka translation:
"what does an acacia single body, a prominent representation of a being, is the leaf, its powerful green casing, which gives it individuality and vital force in the face of powerful ORUN, the deities and the great God Oludumaré"
oh!!! thanks god somebody explained why that acaça wasn't anything familiar to me!!!!
Thanks, ClaudiaMarques!!!
for those who doesn't like the palm oil, i guess just take it out of the recipe. but be sure that it gives Bobó some of its particular flavor, so just a little... in the end... wouldn't hurt!
When cooking polenta (and rice) i have used coconut milk, and it does taste good!