Beiju Chica de Santarém Novo

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Box grater with fine holes or food processor with fine grating disk
• •Clean thin kitchen towel or nut-milk bag
• •Two rimmed baking sheets
• •Wire rack
• •Optional banana leaf pieces or parchment paper

Instructions

1. 1

   Set the tray

   Heat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment, or with clean banana leaf pieces warmed for a few seconds until flexible. The leaf gives a faint green smell and helps release the biscuits; parchment is the Tuesday shortcut, clean and reliable, but you lose that little Pará cue.

2. 2

   Grate the cassava

   Peel the cassava thickly, cutting away the brown skin and the pinkish layer under it, then split the roots and pull out the tough center cord. Grate on the fine holes or in a processor until it looks like damp, snowy crumbs with tiny fibers. Fine grating releases the starch that will hold the beiju together; big shreds bake up wiry and fall apart.

   Use sweet cassava sold for cooking. Bitter cassava belongs to people who know that processing from root to flour house. Don't taste raw cassava; bake it fully.
3. 3

   Squeeze it damp

   Pile the grated cassava in a clean thin towel and twist hard over a bowl until the liquid slows to drops. Open the towel. The massa should clump when you squeeze a fistful, but your palm should not be wet. Too much liquid makes a leathery biscuit; too much squeezing makes sand. If you overshoot, let the squeezed liquid sit 10 minutes, pour off the top liquid, and rub 1 tablespoon of the white goma at the bottom back into the massa.

4. 4

   Mix with coconut

   Add the grated coconut to the damp cassava. Rub and fold with your hands for 2 minutes, until every handful is flecked with coconut and smells clean and sweet. Press a spoonful in your fist; it should hold its shape with rough edges. This mixing spreads the coconut through the starch, so the biscuit eats crisp, not chalky.

5. 5

   Shape thin beijus

   Use 1 heaping tablespoon per biscuit. Press each portion onto the prepared sheet into a firm round about 2 1/2 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick, tightening the edges with your fingertips. Thin matters. Too thick and the center stays gummy while the coconut goes too dark; too loose and it crumbles when you flip it.

6. 6

   Bake until dry

   Bake for 18 minutes, then check one biscuit with a thin spatula. If the underside releases and shows pale gold spots, flip them; if it sticks, give the tray 3 to 5 more minutes because the starch hasn't set. Bake 15 to 18 minutes more, until the tops look matte, the edges are toasted, and the centers no longer show a damp shine. Turn off the oven and leave the biscuits inside with the door cracked for 10 minutes. Crispness here is drying, not burning the coconut into bitterness.

7. 7

   Cool and store

   Move the biscuits to a rack and let them cool completely before judging them. They firm up as the last moisture leaves. Eat with coffee, pack for festa, or tuck beside a bowl of fruit after a pê-efe. Store airtight only once cool, or trapped moisture will soften all your good work.

Chef Tips

• •Read the cassava bag. You want raw grated mandioca or whole sweet cassava. Farinha d'água and farinha seca are already toasted meals; they won't become dough again. Polvilho doce and polvilho azedo are starches; goma de mandioca is hydrated starch for tapioca crepe, not tapioca pearls. Different bags, different jobs. Anota aí.
• •If your market cassava massa has crueira, the coarse bits that survive the sieve, pick out woody strings for this biscuit instead of blaming the recipe. Crueira is useful in the kitchens that know it, but Beiju Chica wants an even, fine bite.
• •Frozen unsweetened grated cassava and frozen unsweetened grated coconut are honest shortcuts. They save time and knuckles. The cost is less perfume than fresh coconut and a little more water to squeeze out. Sweetened coconut, tapioca pearls, and boxed beiju mixes are not the same dish.
• •Fresh cassava should be heavy, firm, and white or cream inside, with no grey streaks or sour smell. If the root is tired, cook something else. I won't let a sad vegetable make you think you failed.
• •Don't add sugar because you think a biscuit must be dessert. The point is the clean sweetness of coconut against cassava. If your table wants it sweeter, serve fruit beside it instead of rewriting the dough.
• •These are make-ahead biscuits. Cool them fully, store airtight 5 days, and recrisp at 150 C (300 F) for 8 minutes if they soften. Humidity is the thief here, not your technique.

Advance Preparation

• •If using frozen raw grated cassava, thaw it overnight in the fridge, squeeze it well, then measure. Measure after squeezing, not before.
• •Cut banana leaf pieces and soften them up to 1 day ahead. Dry them well and keep wrapped in the fridge.
• •Bake Beiju Chica up to 5 days ahead. Store airtight only after fully cool, then recrisp at 150 C (300 F) for 8 minutes before serving if needed.
• •The mixed raw massa is best baked the same day. After a night in the fridge it can darken and sour, and then the recipe gets blamed for the refrigerator's work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 25g)