Salgadinhos!

Since I am in Brazil and the title of this blog is Brasilian Wax, I figure I might as well spend a bit of time writing about, ya know, Brazilian stuff. Or wax. I'm gonna stay away from the wax. So today's entry is going to focus on salgadinhos. I am no salgadinho expert -- but I can tell you that they are delicious. What are salgadinhos, you are probably asking yourself, possibly already slavering at the thought of something delicious. Well, my hungry friend, they are little bits of fried Brazilian goodness, usually in the form of a ball of dough stuffed with something equally/more fattening, then "lightly" fried to a texture ranging somewhere between Moist Doughiness and Crispy Doughiness. For a picture of some of the many varities of salgadinhos, see picture 2 mm. below:

Mmm.. look good, don't they?

So what brought me onto this topic? Possibly the fact that I just scarfed about 17 assorted salgadinhos at the Clifford Chance monthly birthday roundup. Every month we have a party for everyone whose birthday happens to fall in that month, with gooey cake, salgadinhos galore, pop, and sometimes even sandwiches with toothpicks in them. This month I skipped the cake and went for the salgadinhos, some of which were stuffed with another ubiqutious Brazilian food, bacalhau --DRIED COD FISH. Heavens to Betsy, I love me some dried cod fish. Actually, bacalhau is one of those things that sounds, I dunno, repulsive until you actually eat it. Sort of like yams.

Brazilians have a million uses for bacalhau -- you never know when it's gonna pop up in something you're eating! Pizza, pasta, sandwiches, salgadinhos, you just never know! It adds a little excitement to the dining experience. Italians are big on bacalhau, too, as I know from my own dad's family's fixation with bacala (sp?), which is Italian for dried cod fish. Mmm... cod fish.

Well, that's about it for my Brazlian gastronomic culture lesson today. I am including a link for recipes (in POrtuguese) for salgadinhos, which I am sure will be extremely useful to no one, but it has pictures:

http://www.terra.com.br/culinaria/especiais/salgadinhos/