Farofa de Churrasco

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide 30 cm skillet or sauté pan
• •Wooden spoon or heatproof spatula
• •Measuring cups and spoons

Instructions

1. 1

   Choose the flour

   Put the cassava flour in a bowl and run your fingers through it before you start. You want coarse or medium grains, dry and loose, not a fine powder. Coarse farinha toasts into a farofa that stays sandy and separate; very fine flour can turn heavy and pasty once it meets the butter, and then you'll blame yourself instead of the bag.

   If your farinha is already deeply toasted, use lower heat and a shorter time. It has less distance to go before bitter, and bitter farofa is a tragedy with excellent posture.
2. 2

   Soften the onion

   Set a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the butter and oil, then the chopped onion and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until the onion turns soft, shiny, and lightly golden at the edges, about 6 to 8 minutes. The salt pulls out moisture and helps the onion murchar instead of scorch; that slow sweetness is the base of the farofa.

3. 3

   Add the garlic

   Add the garlic and stir for about 1 minute, just until you can smell it clearly. Don't let it brown hard. Garlic goes from fragrant to bitter fast, and once it burns, it spreads that bitterness through every spoonful like it pays rent there.

4. 4

   Toast the farinha

   Lower the heat to medium-low and add the cassava flour in a steady shower while stirring. Keep stirring and folding from the bottom of the pan until every grain looks kissed with butter and the color shifts from pale beige to warm gold, about 5 to 7 minutes. This slow toasting wakes up the nutty flavor and dries the flour evenly; high heat gives you a burned bottom and a raw top, which is nonsense in a skillet.

5. 5

   Check the point

   Drag a spoon through the farofa. It should fall back in loose grains, not clump like wet sand, and it should smell buttery and toasted, not sharp or smoky. Taste it. Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, black pepper if using, and more butter only if it tastes dry and dusty. Farofa should be rich enough to carry juices, not greasy enough to shine like a parking lot.

6. 6

   Finish and serve

   Turn off the heat and stir in parsley or scallions if using. Let the farofa sit in the warm pan for 2 minutes, then spoon it into a bowl. Serve beside churrasco, beans, rice, couve, eggs, or whatever is solving dinner tonight. It should catch sauce and juices without disappearing into mush.

Chef Tips

• •Buy farinha de mandioca, cassava flour, not tapioca starch. They come from the same root, but they do different jobs. Tapioca starch will not make farofa; it'll make regret.
• •Butter gives churrasco farofa its round flavor, but the spoon of oil helps keep the butter from browning too fast while the onion cooks. That's a Tuesday shortcut I approve of. A seasoning packet is not.
• •If you want a richer churrasco version, cook 1/2 cup chopped bacon first, remove it, and use 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat plus 2 tablespoons butter. Stir the bacon back in at the end. Delicious, yes. Everyday, not always.
• •Make it a little drier for barbecue, because it needs to catch meat juices. Make it a little more buttery for rice and beans, because there the farofa is helping the plate come together.
• •Don't walk away once the cassava flour is in the pan. Farofa burns from underneath while looking innocent on top. I learned this the expensive-smelling way.

Advance Preparation

• •Farofa can be made up to 2 days ahead. Cool it completely, store covered in the fridge, and rewarm in a dry skillet over low heat, stirring until loose again.
• •For outdoor dining, make it the morning of the churrasco and keep it covered at room temperature for up to 4 hours if your kitchen is cool. If it contains bacon or egg, refrigerate it.
• •Do not freeze farofa. It comes back dull and damp, and a dish built on dry toasted grains deserves better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 75g)