African inspired Vatapá as a Brazilian shrimp stew.

This Brazilian

shrimp stew needs dried shrimp which we're going to rehydrate, some amazing spices and

flavours that we're going to cook off in palm oil

and its thickened with nuts and bread. Now you said Brazilian.

Yes. Are you sure this is Brazilian? Yes from the northeast region of Brazil.

And it starts with some dried shrimp, about a handful. And all we need to do is start to rehydrate

those

just by pouring hot water over. Wait wait wait, you have to appreciate the smell of this.

Can you smell that? I don't think they going to be able to smell that. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Not pleasant. They are potent. But that's what gives this dish its authentic

depth of flavour. In the meantime, I'm going to chop up an onion

you're going to do two cloves of garlic and one red

chili. And this is the base to our stew. Now the reason I questioned

if this was from Brazil or not, is that I've heard that it started

in Africa So it's now very traditional

in the northeast of Brazil. But you're absolutely right, it came across as an original

concept or idea from Africa. Now these need to be fried off. Are you alright there?

in a little bit of palm oil.

You're really struggling. The onions were quite strong. A little bit of palm oil

Have you ever used this stuff before? I have never used it, I've heard about it.

Another ingredient that came across from Africa, now used a lot

in the tropics, Brazilian cuisine. The color comes from the

oil palms. It's the reddish pulp from the fruit of the oil palms

that creates palm oil. Now you're starting to cry. Now I'm going. There we go.

While that's sweating away we're going to talk about a few other ingredients that are classic

to a vatapá that thickens it. It's nuts... cashew nuts,

peanuts and bread. Okay so, if I give you

some of this stale bread. Yeah. If you just put it in our chopper, Where is it? We just want bread crumbs.

Over there.

Blend those up to crumbs.

Great, and the crumbs can go into here because now we need to take our shrimp...

they've kind of begun to absorb that and rehydrate.

They're alive! Not alive, just floating occasionally. What I'm going to do it drain that off.

You actually buy shimp paste. Because this bit kind of makes it like a chowder.

I guess doesn't it? In the sense that you're blitzing up fish into the dish. Yeah. I guess so like a laksa

from Asia. All round the world different

stews of fish variety use shrimp as a paste, so yeah I guess you're right.

That's cool. Now at this stage

our onions are beginning to go nice and soft

and this is a brilliant part of this dish, everything goes in together now.

So what we're going to do is put about a tablespoon or two of that in there, along with the same

of breadcrumbs. Nuts... we've got two forms of nuts... cashew nuts

and roasted peanuts. Good handful of each of those. A can of coconut milk

and then the same again, another can, but this time just water, because you've got so many

flavours in there now

the water just helps to cook it out. So bring this up to simmer

and let it bubble away for half an hour or so. And then we can blend it to a kind of thick

paste and we're going to serve ours with rice, which we're going to cook off

in salted boiling water. That's traditional in the northeast of Brazil, but, you can also serve it as

street food. In kind of black-eye pea fritters. Almost like falafel that you split open and

put this amazing shrimp

stewy paste inside. The Black-eyed Peas did a Brazilian song didn't they?

Did they? Yeah, with Sérgio Mendes.

(Sing sing sing!)

At this point our rice is cooked. And our stew, look at that... thickened up

nicely. It's a lot thicker.

Like bread sauce in the UK, bread and milk infused with flavours

The bread in here has now absorbed a lot of that and all we need to do is transfer it

to our blender to liquidise it. Why are we blending it, why can't we leave it lumpy?

I guess you could, but you what the nuts in there to blend up

that's what will make it creamy. Ahhhh. As the nuts get blended. I'm guessing it's traditional.

We're trying out best here to be tradition.

If we're not, let us know!

So if can blend that up because over here this is where I'm going to take it away from tradition.

Okay. This tradition would be quite a cheap everyday kind of meal. Yeah.

With a shrimp paste. We're going to elevate it by putting in some fresh sea bass

and some king prawns on top. So we've got a smoking hot pan there

and our sea bass goes in. At this point season it up

on the flesh side. The thing is, you can do what you want

at this point, because what I've read about this dish is that people even use chicken. You can kind of put anything in it.

Yep, you've got the absolute basis and from there you can make it your own. If you can blend that up.

done?

Almost. Well it's a nice consistency but now we season it up.

Because although our shrimp paste is really quite salty

Ahh ha. Now you can bring it bring to life with the juice of a lime.

So there we go, we can start to plate this up now. Our fish is nearly ready.

Plenty of our rice. Can I try some?

Thank you. Ahhhh, that is incredible.

Now it smelt very fishy earlier on,

but that is just the right amount of fish. Because that was only one ingredient. When you mix it with everything else

it's absolutely beautiful. So that's going to go in there like so

and we'll top it off with a fillet of sea bass.

A few of our prawns dotted around there as well.

Fresh coriander on top. Look at that!

Or cilantra? And there we go, a few cashew nuts. It's our take

on a Vatapá. Slightly more high-end with sea bass and king prawns.

Hopefully the concept is still there. Do let us know though, in the comments below, if you'd do anything differently.

That is SORTED!

Now this is one I'm looking forward to. This is so unique!

It's good. Kind of like a curry, but not. Little bit of spice,

a little sweetness from the coconut and the nuts and the fish just makes it amazing.

Yep, I like it. That's delicious. I'm definitely going to try this one.

But I might try a different fish. Why not? What fish would you go for?

I'd go for cod. You?