Paçoca

Brazilian pressed peanut candy from the sertão

Origin: Northeast Brazil (Sertão)

From the journey of Peanut.

Paçoca is one of the oldest continuously made peanut preparations in the world. The name comes from the Tupi verb paçocar, to pound or crush, and the preparation is exactly that: roasted peanuts ground together with cassava flour, sugar, and salt until the mixture clumps into a dry, crumbly, intensely peanutty confection that is pressed into moulds or cylinders and eaten as a sweet. The technique of grinding roasted peanuts with starchy flour predates Portuguese colonisation; the original versions used cassava flour without sweetener. Sugar was the colonial addition that transformed it into a sweet. Paçoca is the defining sweet of the Festa Junina celebrations of Northeast Brazil: the June harvest festivals that mark the corn, cassava, and peanut harvest season. The dry, crumbly texture of paçoca is unlike any other peanut confection in the world: it is not brittle (no caramelised sugar), not chewy, not creamy; it is grainy, pressing against the palate as it melts, releasing pure roasted peanut flavour.

Ingredients

Base

  • 400 g raw unsalted peanuts, skin on
  • 150 g cassava flour (farinha de mandioca), fine, not coarse
  • 150 g icing sugar (powdered sugar), sifted

Seasoning

  • 1 tsp fine salt

Method

  1. Toast the peanuts in a dry heavy pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 8–10 minutes until the skins blister and crack and the peanuts are golden and fragrant. Tip onto a clean tea towel, fold, and rub vigorously to remove the skins. It is fine if some skin remains; rustic paçoca always has flecks of skin.
  2. Place the warm peanuts in a food processor. Process for 2–3 minutes, scraping the bowl periodically, until the peanuts are finely ground and beginning to clump into a rough paste; they should be thoroughly ground but NOT smooth peanut butter. You want a crumbly, sandy texture.
  3. Add the cassava flour, icing sugar, and salt. Pulse several times until everything is combined into a homogeneous, crumbly mixture that holds together when pressed between your fingers.
  4. Press the mixture firmly into a lined square tin (20cm × 20cm), a mould, or individual cylindrical moulds. Press very hard; the compression is what holds paçoca together. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  5. Unmould and cut into squares or cylinders. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Notes

The cassava flour is not optional; it is what gives paçoca its characteristic dry, crumbly texture that wheat flour cannot replicate. It is available at Brazilian, Portuguese, and many African and Caribbean grocery stores. Traditional paçoca moulds are cylindrical; a square tin cut into 4×4cm pieces is the home version. Paçoca should crumble slightly when bitten; if it holds together perfectly hard, you used too much pressure; if it falls apart completely, grind the peanuts a little finer before adding the flour.

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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