Olá all you hungry people,
We now have a new way to take some spotlighted food photos ourselves, and with that has come a newly ignited passion to give you more insight into some of the intricacies of the dishes you love, and the new ones you haven't tried yet!
So, first let's get to know Moqueca do Mar d'O Gambuzino a little better...
Moqueca do Mar 🌊
Filetes de raiz de aipo embrelhados em nori num cozido de leite de côco e pimentos, couscous integral, quiabos grelhados com piri piri, e pepino marinado em coentros & limao. amêndoas.
Fillets of celeriac wrapped in nori in coconut milk and bell pepper stew, wholewheat couscous, spicy grilled okra and cucumber marinated in lemon & coriander, almond
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Since Monica is from Australia, and Vasco's past specialisation was in Japanese cuisine, our food can very easily become heavily asian influenced, but we want to include foods from around the world. We especially want to include more portuguese influenced dishes.
Moqueca is an afro-brasileiro dish and we had the idea in the back of our minds for a while but not known what to use as the 'meat' of the dish - then suddenly we had our answer.
We were having celeriac ('celery' root) with staff meals, when one of us said 'who's cooking fish?!' and later, 'my gosh, is this fish we are eating?'
After months of refining, we created a seriously fishy fish-alternative that even our fish-eating friends question the vegan-ness of.
No life was harmed in the process, but yjou'll still get that extra flakey 'fish', something you couldn't imagine could be created from plants and handmade by us.
The other components made themselves obvious to us with time and testing, and we followed our natural desires. Making the stew rich with slow cooked peppers, coconut milk, and many spices, but kept fresh with cucumber, coriander and lemon. We chose cous cous after seeking an alternative to rice or wheat. Okra is a vegetable we both absolutely love and wanted to include in a dish so we were thrilled when we realised how well it would work as a side to moqueca do mar.
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We are really proud of the creativeness of this dish and how it has turned out, and we hope you love it too.
Abraços,
O Gambuzino