Sarapatel Nordestino

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 5-liter pot
• •Slotted spoon
• •Fine-mesh sieve for the blood
• •3 to 5-liter slow cooker, optional

Instructions

1. 1

   Start cold

   Buy the offal from a butcher you trust, as fresh as possible, and keep it cold until you cook. Ask for a mix of heart, liver, kidney, spleen, lung, or tongue, already cleaned and chopped if they'll do it. Ask for food-grade pork blood kept refrigerated and mixed with vinegar, or cooked pork blood. If the blood is not food-grade and cold, leave it. A recipe is not worth a risky pot.

   Offal spoils faster than a pork shoulder. Cook it within 24 hours of buying it, and keep it cold while you prep the rest.
2. 2

   Blanch the offal

   Put the offal, except the liver if it is separate, in a 5-liter pot with 8 cups water and 1/4 cup vinegar. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes, until grey foam rises and the pieces tighten. Drain and rinse quickly. This is not to wash away flavor; it calms the strong smell and gives you clean pieces that brown better. If your liver is separate, blanch it for 1 minute only or hold it raw for the final simmer.

3. 3

   Season hard

   When the pieces are cool enough to handle, cut them into 1/2-inch pieces. Toss them with the remaining 1/4 cup vinegar, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon colorau, cumin, black pepper, and the chopped chiles. Rest 20 minutes while you chop the onions, pepper, tomato, and herbs. The acid wakes the flavor and tames the edge, but don't leave liver in vinegar all afternoon or it turns chalky.

4. 4

   Brown in batches

   Lift the seasoned offal from the bowl with a slotted spoon and save the liquid in the bowl. Warm 2 tablespoons lard or oil in the pot over medium-high heat. Brown the pieces in 2 or 3 batches, 3 to 4 minutes per batch, until the edges take dark spots and the pot smells savory instead of sharp. Don't crowd the pan. Too much meat at once drops the heat, the pieces release water, and you steam them grey instead of dourar them properly.

5. 5

   Build the refogado

   Drop the heat to medium. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon fat, the onions, bell pepper, and a pinch of salt to the same pot. Cook 7 to 8 minutes, scraping the brown bits, until the onion is soft and the pepper has murchado. Add the tomatoes and cook until they collapse and the oil shines around the edges, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining 3 minced garlic cloves, bay leaves, and remaining 1 teaspoon colorau, and stir 1 minute, just until the garlic smells sweet. Burnt garlic is bitter and bossy.

6. 6

   Simmer tender

   Return the browned offal and any juices to the pot. Pour in the saved seasoning liquid and 2 cups water or unsalted pork stock. Bring to a boil, then lower to a steady simmer with the lid slightly open. Cook 1 to 1 1/2 hours, stirring now and then, until the heart and kidney pieces are tender enough to cut with a spoon and the vinegar has softened into the sauce. If the pot looks dry before the pieces are tender, add water 1/2 cup at a time. If you held liver back, add it during the last 25 minutes.

7. 7

   Temper the blood

   Scoop 1/2 cup hot broth from the pot into a bowl. Whisk in the fresh blood, then pour it slowly back into the pot while stirring. If the blood has clots, press it through a fine sieve first. If you're using cooked pork blood, crumble it straight into the pot instead. Simmer gently 20 to 25 minutes, until the molho darkens, thickens, and coats a spoon. Tempering keeps the blood from seizing into rubbery clumps, and the full simmer cooks it through.

8. 8

   Finish bright

   Stir in the cilantro, scallions, mint if using, and 1 tablespoon vinegar or lime juice. Taste for salt, pepper, and acid. The stew should be rich first, then sharp enough to make you want the next spoonful. Rest 10 minutes off the heat. The molho thickens, the seasoning settles down, and the pot stops shouting.

9. 9

   Plate the pê-efe

   Spoon the sarapatel over or beside arroz branco soltinho, with feijão caseiro, couve refogada, and farofa. If beans are part of tonight's plate, soak them ahead so they cook evenly and sit easier; finish them with a refogado and mash one ladle of cooked beans back into the pot so the caldo turns creamy instead of watery. Rice catches the molho, beans steady the plate, couve cuts the richness, and farofa brings the dry crunch. That's dinner solved, not a performance.

Chef Tips

• •Ask the butcher to clean and chop the offal. That's an honest shortcut because it saves time without swapping real food for imitation food. The cost is that the pieces may be uneven, so check them and cut the big ones down.
• •Fresh blood is not a place to improvise. It must be food-grade, cold, and from a butcher who knows what you're making. If you can't get it, make a good offal stew and tell the truth about it. Close, useful, not sarapatel.
• •Colorau, cumin, fresh pepper, onion, garlic, cilantro: that's seasoning. A cube or packet promising the taste of the Nordeste is salt and marketing wearing a hat. Leave it on the shelf.
• •Slow cooker Tuesday shortcut: after blanching, browning, and building the refogado, transfer everything except the blood and fresh herbs to a slow cooker. Cook on low 5 to 6 hours or high 3 hours, then stir in the tempered blood and cook on high 45 minutes more. Skip the browning and the flavor gets flatter. A Tuesday is a Tuesday, but the pan still has work to do.
• •Don't confuse this with the cure-dry-pound-stretch family of sertão dishes. Carne de sol is lightly salted and briefly dried, carne seca is more heavily salted and dried, and charque is salted and dried harder for longer storage. Sarapatel is a fresh-offal and blood stew. A gente names the difference so we don't throw every interior dish into one bag.
• •Kidneys can taste strong if the white core stays in. Trim it out or ask the butcher to do it. If the smell is still fierce after blanching, cook something else that day. I won't let a tired ingredient make you think the recipe failed.

Advance Preparation

• •Buy the offal and blood no more than 24 hours before cooking, and keep them refrigerated the whole time.
• •The offal can be blanched, drained, cooled, and refrigerated up to 1 day ahead. Season it 20 to 30 minutes before cooking, not all afternoon.
• •If you're serving feijão with the plate, soak the beans overnight, at least 8 hours, so they cook evenly and sit easier.
• •Sarapatel tastes even better the next day. Cool it quickly, refrigerate up to 3 days, and reheat at a steady simmer until fully hot. It freezes up to 2 months, though the molho may need a splash of water when reheating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 690g)