RECIPE - Bean Soup Brazilian Beach Style (Caldinho de Feijão)

To wrap up Flavors of Brazil's series of posts on Brazilian beach-style soup recipes, we're posting one of the most traditional as well as most popular caldinhos (cups of soup in Portuguese) - bean soup with coconut milk. Along with the ever-popular fish and shrimp soups solds on the beaches of Brazil, bean soup is a favorite choice for Brazilian beach-goers on beaches all along the coastline of Brazil.

This soup can be made with any variety of dried beans. Even in Brazil, the choice of beans in this soup varies from region to region and from vendor to vendor. In Rio de Janeiro you're most likely to find black bean soup, and in the northeast of the country the most popular choice is carioca beans (similar to pinto beans).

This recipe starts with about three cups of basic Brazilian beans, already cooked. We published the recipe in back in 2010 and you can link to that recipe here), you can use those beans and some of their broth as the soup base. Either way you'll end up with a hearty and nourishing bean soup, enlivened and "Brazilianized" by the presence of coconut milk. The recipe makes a large quantity of soup, but it freezes marvelously, so you needn't worry about any going to waste.
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RECIPE - Bean Soup Brazilian Beach Style (Caldinho de Feijão)


3 cups approximately, cooked Brazilian-style beans, and their broth (recipe here)
3/4 cup (200 ml) coconut milk
1 small chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped (optional)
2 Tbsp chopped green onion, for garnish
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro, for garnish
2 Tbsp finely chopped red or green bell pepper, for garnish
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Combine the beans and their broth, the coconut milk and optional chili pepper in a large bowl, then blend them, in batches if necessary, until you have a homogenous mixture.

Pour the blended mixture into a large sauce pan and heat over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, reduce heat, and cook for about 10 minutes at a simmer.

Pour the hot soup in cups or mugs, and sprinkle the surface with chopped green onions, bell peppers and/or cilantro.
Serve immediately.

RECIPE - Fish Soup, Brazilian Beach Style (Caldinho de Peixe)

Brazilian beach-style soups, whether eaten on a hot summer's day on the beach, or at home on a cold and damp winter's day, are marvelous pick-me-ups and satisfy without filling. In Brazil, these soups are served in small cups, often plastic ones when they are bought from vendors at the beach, but they are only improved when they're served in small proper soup cups or bowls.

These soups (called caldinhos in Portuguese) are fortunately also very simple to make and don't involve a lot of time or effort. Whether January brings you chilly winter weather or the dog days of summer, you'll find that Brazilian beach-style ish soup really hits the spot.
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RECIPE - Fish Soup, Brazilian Beach Style (Caldinho de Peixe)
Makes 4 small cups or 2 bowls

1 medium-size fish steak (any type of white fish)
1 medium fish head (non-oily fish only), thoroughly cleaned and rinsed
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 medium green pepper, seeded, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
handful fresh cilantro
1 cup (250 ml) coconut milk
3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
additional chopped cilantro (garnish, optional)
croutons (garnish, optional)
chopped green onions, green part only (garnish, optional)
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In a food processor or blender combine the tomatoes (put in first), onion, green pepper, garlic and cilantro. Pulse to begin, then blend until you have a homogenous mixture. Reserve.

Cut the fish steak into large pieces. Combine the fish steak and fish head (whole) in a large saucepan and add 1 liter (1 quart) cold water. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface. Add the blender mixture and cook, at a slow boil, until the mixture has reduced by approximately half. Remove from heat.

Take the fish head plus any skin or bones out of the soup and discard. Pour the remainder in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a clean saucepan, then stir in the coconut milk and olive oil. Heat thoroughly, but do not boil.

Serve in bowls or cups, and pass additional cilantro, croutons and/or green onions in small cups as individual garnishes.

Recife's Surprising Favorite Beach Snack - Soup!

When you're at the beach on a hot and sunny day and you start to feel peckish, what perks your appetite? A cooling fruit salad? A bowl of gazpacho? A chilled, frosty drink? If you're from Recife, in Brazil's always-tropical northeast, it's not like to be any of those things. What makes your mouth water on a scorching afternoon at the beach is a cup of hot soup.

Hot soup?

That's right, in Recife, according to a survey by the city's municipal government and judging by the number of soup vendors that populate the city's most popular beaches, what beachgoers want is a cup of soup (called caldinho or "little soup" in Portuguese), steaming hot. Whether it's bean soup, shrimp soup or fish soup, soup is what hits the spot in Recife.

There is a scientific basis to this predilection for hot soup on a hot day. Ingesting hot food causes the body to sweat, and as the sweat evaporates, it cools the body. It's for the same reason that Thai food, Indian food and other cuisines from hot climes are often spicy - the chiles cause sweating, which cools the body. It's counter-intuitive, but it does work. And it seems that Recife's beach crowd has figured it out.

The garnishes that accompany caldinho are almost as important to customers as the soup itself, according to many of the ambulant vendors that walk the beach all day long, dishing out plastic cups of soup from a thermos jug and adding garnishes according to the customer's desires. Traditional accompaniments include quails' eggs, torresmo (pork rinds), corn kernels and olive slices.

In addition to ambulant vendors, there are beachside stands that sell soup to walk-up customers, and in the most popular of those, it's not uncommon to sell 80 liters (80 quarts) of soup on a weekend afternoon. Many of the stands are weekend-only propositions and are staffed by members of a single extended family.

Customers and vendors alike stress the importance of sanitation and hygiene, and regular beachgoers often have their own list of trusted vendors, from whom they buy caldinho exclusively. Vendor José Carlos da Silva, who has 20-years' experience selling soup on Recife's beaches, points out that the hot soup itself is normally safe to eat, but that one must take extra care when choosing the accompaniments which are normally at ambient temperature.

Coming up in our next posts are some typical caldinho recipes from northeastern Brazil. They're great whether served on a tropical beach, or in a snowbound cabin in the mountains.