Pirão

cassava flour whisked into hot fish broth until it thickens to a pale, savoury cream that sets as it cools

Origin: Bissau & the Bijagós coast, Guinea-Bissau

From the journey of Cassava.

Pirão is not a dish so much as a technique for making sure nothing is wasted. Cassava flour is whisked into the broth left from cooking fish or meat, and within a few minutes it thickens into a smooth savoury cream that carries all the flavour of the stock. It is served alongside the very stew it was made from, which strikes visitors as circular and is in fact the entire logic: the broth is too good to leave in the pot and cassava flour is the cheapest possible way to eat it. The word and the method are Portuguese-African, and they travelled the whole Lusophone Atlantic. Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, and Brazil all make pirão, and in Brazil it is standard beside a moqueca. Cassava itself made the same journey in the other direction, carried from Brazil to West Africa by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century, so the flour and the technique arrived on the African coast together. In Guinea-Bissau it is most often eaten with fish, which is what the Bijagós archipelago and the estuaries supply in quantity. Rice flour is used where cassava is short, and the result is milder and smoother, though the cassava version is what most households would name as the real thing.

Ingredients

  • 250 g fine cassava flour (farinha de mandioca fina)
  • 1 litre hot, well-seasoned fish or meat broth, strained
  • 1 tbsp red palm oil (optional)
  • 1 small onion, very finely chopped (optional)
  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste

Method

  1. Strain the broth so it is free of bones and solids. It must be well seasoned, because the flour carries no flavour of its own and will dilute whatever is there.
  2. If using, soften the onion in the palm oil in the pan first, then pour the broth in.
  3. Bring the broth to a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil.
  4. Take a ladleful of the hot broth and slake the cassava flour with it in a separate bowl, whisking to a smooth loose paste. Skipping this is the commonest way to end up with lumps.
  5. Pour the slaked flour back into the simmering broth in a thin stream, whisking continuously and hard.
  6. Cook over a low heat for eight to ten minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until it thickens to the consistency of a loose custard and turns glossy. It should fall from the spoon in a ribbon.
  7. Taste for salt, pour into a bowl, and serve at once beside the fish or stew. It sets firm as it cools, and cold leftovers are cut into slices and fried.

Notes

The ratio is a guide rather than a rule, because cassava flours vary enormously in absorbency; judge by consistency and hold back some flour rather than adding it all at once. Too thick is not recoverable by adding cold liquid, which makes it grainy, so stop early and loosen with more hot broth if needed. A vegan version made with a strong vegetable or mushroom broth works well, though it is not what is eaten in Bissau.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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