If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, or if you’ve examined a Brazilian menu, or if you’re wondering what this grainy, breadcrumb-like stuff in our salad area is, what you want to know is all about farofa. Farofa is a traditional side dish served in Brazil, and it’s an all-star staple seen at pretty much every meal table, all across the country, and all up and down the socioeconomic ladder. Everyone loves a good farofa.
But what is it, and how did it come to be?
Let’s talk about it.
Table of Contents
What is Farofa?
First, let’s start with the basics. What is farofa in the first place?
Farofa is a meal, and by that, we don’t mean the “sit down and eat your fill” kind of meal. It’s a meal in the sense of cornmeal. In fact, that word, meal, just means flour. In some countries and cultures, the two words are interchangeable. For most of us, a meal is a kind of coarse flour, not the light, powdery fluff you’re used to when you think of all-purpose flour.
Farofa is, specifically, a meal made out of the cassava root. Cassava is known by many names around the world and, in fact, by several names in Brazil. Scientifically speaking, it’s called Manihot esculenta, and while cassava is one of the common names, it can also be found under the name manioc or yuca root. The starch of this root, when extracted on its own, is called cassava starch, or more commonly, tapioca.
Cassava is a relative rarity in the United States, though it’s becoming more and more common. Around the world, though, it’s a staple carbohydrate. In fact, it’s #3 in the world, after rice and corn, with more than half a billion people depending on it as their primary source of carbs.
Fun fact: cassava is actually somewhat toxic because it contains cyanide. Because of that, cassava is processed before consumption, with some form of soaking, cooking, or even fermentation to remove the compounds that become cyanide. Don’t worry, though; farofa is 100% safe to eat, and the cooking process completely denatures the molecules that cause toxicity.
That’s cassava; what about farofa? Well, if you take cassava flour, and you add some kind of oil or fat, and cook it up, and add in some kind of addition like bacon and onion or some spices, what you end up with is toasty, crunchy, breadcrumb-like meal with a smokey, salty, and savory flavor.
A staple carb, mixed with a tasty meat and plenty of flavor, for a delectable ingredient? What’s not to love? That’s what farofa is.
Brazil and North Africa share a lot of culinary DNA because of the slave trade bringing people over from North Africa and making them work on the plantations. North Africa actually has a similar cassava flour ingredient named garri. As such, you might expect farofa to be an offshoot of garri, but it’s actually the other way around. Or, rather, it’s more of a similar evolution using a common staple. The key, though, is that cassava itself comes from Brazil, so anywhere else in the world that uses the root got it from us. Neat!
Where Does Farofa Come From?
Brazil, we just said! But, actually, this is less about the geographical origin and more about the history of the staple food.
Going back hundreds of years, if not thousands, we have to look towards the indigenous peoples of Brazil to find the origin of farofa. These people, in need of food sources like carbohydrates, discovered the cassava root. They also very likely discovered that it can make you sick if you don’t process it first, so process it they did.
One of the simplest ways to process something like cassava is to follow the process still used more or less the same today.
It goes something like this:
- Harvest the roots when they’re ready.
- Peel them since the peel contains a lot of the toxic compounds.
- Grate or grind the root into small shreds or pieces.
- Squeeze out excess moisture. This is traditionally done by hanging it in a cloth to dry or by using a heavy press.
- Dry the cassava shreds fully. Historically, this was done in the sun, though today, we have ovens and dehydrators to do the work for us.
- Grind the dehydrated cassava into a fine powder.
This powder can then be used for all sorts of things, but the simplest way to make it edible is simply to toast it. Cassava on its own has a bit of a nutty flavor that is fairly unique.
Eventually, colonization by the Portuguese and the slave trade led to the intermingling of culinary techniques and traditions from all around the world. European influences from Portugal, African influences from North and West Africa, and continued Brazilian influence all brought cooking techniques and ingredients to the humble cassava flour.
This is where the ideas of adding things like dried meats or bacon, using oil to toast to clump the flour together, and adding in seasonings (some of which weren’t native to Brazil) all came to be. The end result was something very much like what we call farofa today.
Farofa was, for a long while, a sort of poverty food, a staple of slaves who could process and subsist on processing the potentially toxic root while working plantations of foods they wouldn’t be able to enjoy themselves. Over time, though, farofa grew beyond these origins and started to find a home on the tables of the wealthy, the powerful, the familiar, and the celebratory. As a celebration food, it’s common in feasts, as a sharable topping or snack to go with just about anything.
Today, farofa still maintains many of these traditions. It’s broadly enjoyed by nearly everyone in Brazil and many people beyond the borders of the country, and modern-day chefs have innovated on and experimented with the recipe. Still, we prefer the classics.
How Do You Make Farofa?
There are as many recipes for farofa as there are people who enjoy farofa. Most of them share a lot of commonalities, though, so we’ll present two here for your enjoyment. You can make them at home yourself, or, of course, come on down to your nearest Texas de Brazil and enjoy it as prepared by our professional gauchos.
Farofa as a Dish
First, let’s start with a recipe for farofa, which we love ourselves. This one can be used as a topping or seasoning element for other dishes, but it’s a fairly complex set of flavors and stands on its own. It’s a great example of farofa as a dish unto itself, something you can dig into with a spoon and enjoy on its own merits.
Ingredients
- ½ Cup of Unsalted Butter
- 6 Slices of Bacon, chopped
- 2 Shallots, sliced thin
- 4 Tbsp minced garlic
- 4 Eggs, beaten
- ½ lb. Toasted Cassava Flour
- 1/4th Cup Kalamata Olives, pitted and chopped
- 1/4th Cup Raisins or Cranberries
- 1/4th Cup Scallions, chopped
- Salt to taste
It’s a robust set of ingredients, but the process to make the farofa with them is fairly simple.
Start by heating the butter in a sauté pan. Cook the bacon in the butter (yes, it might seem excessive with the bacon fat rendering out, but trust us, you’ll want it all later) until the bacon is nice and crispy, but not burned.
Add in the shallots and garlic, and stir this around until they become golden in color. Pour in the beaten eggs and cook it like an omelette, until the edges are getting crispy and lightly browned. Stir and break it up with a wooden spoon or other implement, then add the cassava flour. Stir this mixture while heating for a solid 2-3 minutes, so it can absorb the fat and develop that characteristic farofa texture.
At this point, you turn off the heat and mix in the olives, raisins, and scallions, and stir it up. Add salt if you think it needs it, then serve!
Farofa as a Topping
Sometimes, farofa as a meal isn’t quite what you want. But, farofa as a topping? Something to add a bit of crunch to a feijoada or to add a crisp bit of texture and a subtle flavor to a piece of meat from churrasco? This one is perfect. It’s simpler, which is why it’s part of our Feijoada with Farofa recipe here. It’s also a smaller batch since you won’t need as much at a time.
Ingredients
- 8 oz cassava flour/tapioca flour
- ½ cup diced yellow onion
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
The method is fairly similar. Add the bacon to a pan over medium heat. When the bacon fat starts to render out, add the butter. When the bacon gets crispy, add in the onions and cook for a couple of minutes until they turn translucent. Then add the garlic and cook until it’s aromatic.
Once that’s ready, add in the cassava flour, salt, and pepper. Stir and toast the flour as it soaks up the fat and butter, and until it turns golden-brown. It won’t take long, just 2-3 minutes of occasional stirring over the heat. When it’s done, transfer it to a bowl and serve it alongside the rest of your meal!
Keep in mind that these are just two possible recipes for farofa. Ask any Brazilian what makes a good farofa, though, and you can bet they’ll have different answers, possibly with their own family recipe to back them up. There’s no wrong way to make it!
How Should You Enjoy Farofa?
If you’re sitting down for a Brazilian meal and you have a bowl of farofa on the side, just waiting for you, how should you use it? If you’re interested in making some on your own but you’re not quite confident in it, what should you try? Here are some options.
Enjoy it on its own. Some farofa recipes, like the first of our two above, make farofa the star of the show. They layer on flavors, textures, and add-ins to make something a whole lot like a robust rice dish like you might find in other countries. Obviously, it’s not fluffy and soft like rice would be, but it serves a similar purpose. It’s great, so dig in!
Sprinkle some on your other foods. Farofa – sometimes also simply known as farinha – is often served as a side to sprinkle on other dishes. A little bit to add texture to feijoada, a bit to coat some meat, a bit to sprinkle on a salad like tiny croutons, it can go on anything. We’ve even seen it used as stuffing for poultry!
One note that might be interesting to you is that farinha and farofa are almost the same thing. Farinha is usually the untoasted cassava flour, while farofa is the cooked version, but some are labeled interchangeably. Either way, they’re used for the same purpose, and it can depend on what region in Brazil you’re visiting which label it gets.
Consider a dessert farofa. One of the more interesting developments over the years is a version of sweet farofa used on desserts like ice cream. It might even still include the bacon, though probably not the onions. Since the basic flavor is mild and nutty, it’s almost like putting peanuts on ice cream, or sprinkles on a sundae.
Come visit Texas de Brazil! Farofa is a staple of Brazilian cuisine, so of course, we have it on our menu. If you want to try it for yourself without making it on your own, all you need to do is find your nearest Texas de Brazil and stop by. While you’re here, you can enjoy the fabulous tradition of churrasco, enjoy traditional Brazilian side dishes and foods, and experience everything gauchos bring to the table – both metaphorically and literally! We’d love to have you, so be sure to come in soon!
