Farofa de Churrasco

You know that quiet voice that looks at a pan of dry cassava flour and says, isso não é pra mim? Good. Put it in a chair and let it watch. Farofa is not a talent test. It's heat, fat, onion, flour, and attention. Cozinhar não é dom, é um aprendizado, and this one teaches fast.

I love farofa because it does an honest job. On the pê-efe, it sits beside rice, beans, meat or egg, and something green, catching caldo, juices, and butter so the plate eats like one thing instead of little separate islands. At a churrasco, it catches the meat juices. At home on a Tuesday, it makes beans feel finished. Comida de verdade doesn't need a packet pretending to be flavor. It needs an onion cooked until sweet and cassava flour toasted until it smells nutty.

The method is simple, but don't confuse simple with careless. You murcha the onion slowly so it turns sweet instead of sharp. You add the garlic for one minute because burnt garlic is bitter and bossy. Then the cassava flour goes in low and slow, stirred until golden and loose. Wander off and the bottom burns before the top wakes up. Stay there five minutes. That's the whole price.

By the end you'll have a bowl of farofa that is buttery, sandy in the good way, golden in uneven little specks, and ready to resolver o jantar. Anota aí: recipes that work are not magic. They're just written clearly enough that a gente can repeat them.