Unlike American steakhouses, where you’re given one big piece of meat and a limited number of sides ordered ahead of time, Brazilian establishments serve you much smaller quantities of meat per portion, but there are many more options, and the selection is virtually unlimited. The salad bar is open, and depending on the set-up of the restaurant, you either form a line at a grill and select meats from spits being rotisseried on a coal or wood fire, or waiters come with those spits from table to table and you, the customer, indicate with a card if you want the next meat rotation or not. In any case, farofa is found at every Brazilian steakhouse and is an integral part of not only the traditional Brazilian barbeque experience but also a staple of home cooking and a regular accompaniment to red meat or chicken.
The concept of “farofa” is a rather difficult one to explain to an American audience because no true analog exists. Perhaps the best approximation of the dish lies in what we Americans call “stuffing” or “dressing,” although I’ve never seen farofa presented as “stuffing” is here in America, that is, inside of a whole bird or roast of meat. However, it is my hope that using “stuffing” as an analog in the American culinary vernacular will make this dish substantially more accessible to even the most novice cook.
Whether someone can make good farofa might well be a good litmus test for how well any given chef has mastered Brazilian home cooking: everyone has their own family recipe, there exists an enormous variety of interpretations of the dish.
Every farofa has a few common elements: eggs that are somehow scrambled, some sort of flour, and an assortment of mix-ins. The following is my immediate family’s recipe—my mom and I use this, but, just for the sake of showing how much variation there is in this dish, I’ll point out that my aunt does something totally different from what my mom does, which is probably totally different from what my grandmother would do—and that’s just on one side of the family. This immense variability will definitely play to the advantage of any American home cook wanting to try farofa: whatever your tastes, you can adapt your farofa to include those ingredients prepared exactly as you like them.
Farofa is a quick dish, so I strongly recommend two technical points: first, put your phone away. You cannot afford to be distracted while preparing farofa. I’ve learned this from experience; they burn very quickly if you’re on your phone and not giving them the attention they need by stirring pretty much constantly. Second, reach and maintain a state of what the French call “mise en place.” This term, French for “everything in its proper place” means cutting, washing, seeding, etc. anything you need well in advance of when you actually need it, and even before you start properly cooking. Do all your washing, chopping, and other prep work early; this dish comes together quickly enough that a few seconds cutting an onion might mean the difference between good farofa (if you had already cut the onion) and a bad, burned one (if you waited until you needed the onion to cut it). If you learn nothing else from farofa, learn to always maintain mise en place, even in your home kitchen.
I like to start my farofa by sweating out any alliums—relatives of garlic, like garlic itself, yellow or white onions, shallots, scallions, or leeks— I might have in my fridge. The objective when sweating vegetables out, especially alliums, is to minimize browning. That’s a different technique, caramelization. When sweating, cook the alliums gently until they are translucent, but don’t really pick up any color.
Once the alliums are sweated out, place 3 beaten, seasoned (just salt and pepper) eggs in the pan, and keep the eggs moving until cooked through. Your objective is not to form an omelet here, but to fully cook and scramble the eggs without burning them, and without integrating the alliums into the eggs either. (This is the main difference within my family—some people cook the eggs with everything else and break them up in the same pan, while others cook the eggs separately, break them up, and then introduce them to the other ingredients.)
Once the eggs are fully cooked, add in some sort of flour or meal. Cassava or yucca flour is traditional, but, probably because of the quarantine associated with the coronavirus and the shortages that have resulted, I can’t recall the last time we’ve had cassava-based farofa; instead, we’ve been using cornmeal, which has been much more readily accessible, and, I’d argue, produces an even better flavor profile than with the cassava. Keep everything moving so as not to scorch either the now-fully-cooked eggs or the (yucca or cornmeal) flour. Your only objective at this point is to lightly toast the flour until aromatic and to introduce the other flavors in the pan to the flour.
Once enough flour has been incorporated, the dish should resemble an American stuffing with small particles, not a batter. At this point, if desired, fold in whatever accouterments you wish to add. Remember, to an American home cook, you’re assembling something similar to stuffing. By this point, you’ve already taken care of your starch base (flour here, bread in stuffing) and your binder (eggs in both dishes). Feel free to add in whatever you like, exactly as you would when assembling a stuffing with your favorite mix-ins. We normally add white raisins and/or black olives, just keeping the pan on the heat—and stirring constantly—until incorporated and heated through. Once all your flavorings are incorporated, turn off the heat and taste the farofa for seasoning.
As mentioned before, farofa is traditionally served as an accompaniment to red meat or chicken, also accompanied by rice, beans, and the vegetable side of your choice.
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