What is Minas Gerais food, according to chef Flávio Trombino – 11/11/2023 – Food

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Chef Flávio Trombino, who runs Xapuri, in Belo Horizonte, brought to SP at the end of October a temporary menu of Minas Gerais food, served at Loup, in the west region of the capital. I spoke to him to find out the history of his dishes.

At the helm of Xapuri for ten years, Trombino stamps his identity on the restaurant, but maintains the traditions started by his mother, Nelsa, who founded the place 36 years ago. A reference in Minas Gerais food, she died in 2023.

According to the chef, the wood stove, which has been burning non-stop since the restaurant was founded, is an example of the Minas Gerais style of his cuisine. The embers are still used to cook important dishes of the house, such as sausages, broths or tutus.

As it was impossible to reproduce the same stove in SP, the chef’s solution was to bring some food produced using wood, such as lemon peel candy. The dessert is cooked for eight days and blanched to reduce the bitterness of the fruit, one of the chef’s signatures.

Another technique used by Trombino, which also appears on Loup’s special menu, is confit, used in the “bebo” suckling pig. With it, the pork meat is immersed and cooked in the animal’s fat at a low temperature.

“It was a food preservation technique used when there was no refrigerator,” he explains.

The “bebo” of the dish, a Minas Gerais reduction of the word drunk, refers to the bean tutu —made with cachaça— that accompanies the meat. At regional festivals, such as congado and folia de reis, the drink has a prominent place in the food.

Choosing regional ingredients, continues Trombino, is also something very Minas Gerais.

The chef says he served Xapuri cheese bread, made with quality cassava starch, handmade dough and free-range eggs, to São Paulo residents. “With ingredients like this, everyone likes it,” he says.

In both the menu presented in SP and the fixed menu in BH, the chef summarizes his expertise in:

• warm way of welcoming customers;
• smell of wood burning stove;
• regional ingredients;
• ancestral knowledge;
• country music in the background.

Xapuri
–>Rua Mandacarú, 260 – Loja 1 – Trevo, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

See the Minas Gerais menu served in SP

Cover charge
-Pequi butter
– Jiló caponata
-Frescal cheese
-Bread basket (includes: the famous cheese bread)
-Amuse-bouche
-Canastra cheese and honeycomb

Prohibited
-Polpetas da Vó Felicia (cheese meatballs cooked in Bolognese sauce made with Xapuri sausage)

1st dish
-Arroz preguento (chicken with mushrooms and toasted okra)

2nd dish
-Leitão drink (boneless suckling pig, bean tutu, pork head rôti and crackling farofa)

Dessert
-Brazuca (lemon peel jam filled with dulce de leche and coffee powder)

Bean tutu recipe with caramelized pumpkin and kale crisp

Easy to prepare, chef Beth Branco’s dish takes about an hour to prepare. Makes two servings.

Ingredients:
For the tutu
-2 tablespoons of corn oil
-1/2 chopped onion
-2 chopped garlic cloves
-2 stalks of chopped green onion
-1 cup of cooked carioca beans
-1 cup of cooked black beans
-Cassava flour
-Fried bacon to taste
-Salt and black pepper to taste

For the caramelized pumpkin
-1 kg of Japanese pumpkin (Cabotian) in cubes
-1 kg of sugar
-1 cinnamon stick
-Water as much as you need

For the kale crisp
-1 cabbage leaf
-Oil for frying

HOW TO MAKE:
Tutu
-In a pan, sauté the onion, garlic and chives in corn oil.
-Add the cooked beans with a little of the broth, more salt and pepper, let it boil for a few minutes and gradually add the cassava flour, stirring constantly, without taking it off the heat, until it reaches a soft consistency.
-Serve the tutu immediately, garnished with fried bacon, and accompanied by caramelized pumpkin and kale crisp.

Caramelized pumpkin
-Place the pumpkin cubes in a pan, skin side down, without overlapping the pieces.
-Distribute the sugar evenly over the top and cover the pumpkins with water. Add the cinnamon.
-Bring to the heat and cook until the cubes are cooked and lightly caramelized.

Kale crisp
-Remove the stem from the cabbage leaf, roll it like a cigar and cut into very thin slices.
-Dry well with paper towel.
-Heat the oil in a pan.
-Carefully add a handful of cabbage and fry until it is crispy.
-Remove and drain on paper towel.