🇧🇷 Brazil · Minas Gerais, the Northeast and Sao Paulo
Caldo de mocotóBrazilian calf's foot soup
A rich Brazilian broth of mocotó (the slow-cooked feet and cartilage of cattle), seasoned with onion, garlic, bay, tomato, cumin and turmeric, served hot in a cup or bowl with cheiro-verde, often with a quail egg.
Origin and history
Caldo de mocoto is a broth of slow-cooked cattle feet served in the bars and botecos of Minas Gerais, where Brazilian newspaper columns describe it as something to warm up with or take for energy. A column in Tribuna de Minas notes that there is no scientific proof of its medicinal effects, even though a 1985 song by Genival Lacerda celebrates its healing powers. The sources read give no origin date.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 3 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg3.3 lb beef mocoto (cow's feet, cleaned), cut in pieces by the butcher
- 1 lemon, juiced, or 3 tbsp vinegar, for soaking the mocoto
- 2 bay leaves
- about 2.5 liters2.5 quarts water, enough to cover the pieces in the pressure cooker
- 3 tbsp olive oil or other oil
- 2 large onions, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp turmeric (acafrao)
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- chopped cilantro and chives (cheiro-verde), to finish
- quail eggs, crisp pork rinds (torresmo), bread or hot sauce, optional, to serve
Method
-
1. Soak the mocoto for about 2 hours in water with the lemon juice or vinegar, changing the water at least once.
-
2. Cover the pieces with fresh water, boil 5 minutes, discard the water and rinse the pieces.
-
3. Cook the mocoto in a pressure cooker with fresh water and the bay leaves for about 50 minutes, until the meat pulls away from the bones.
-
4. Lift out the bones, shred the meat, and blend about half of it with some of the cooking liquid to make a thick, gelatinous base.
-
5. In a skillet, cook the onion and garlic in the oil until golden, add the tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin and turmeric and cook until the sauce is colored and fragrant.
-
6. Return the shredded meat and the blended base to the pot with the sauce, season with salt and pepper and simmer 10 minutes.
-
7. Ladle into cups or bowls, top generously with cilantro and chives, and serve very hot.
Notes
- Quantities follow a recipe from the Brazilian newspaper Itatiaia in the style of Bar do Nono in Belo Horizonte (open since 1964); it states no number of servings, so the yield is an estimate. TudoGostoso's traditional recipe (6 servings) cooks one mocoto for 40 minutes with bay and coriander, keeps about a fifth of the meat chopped and blends the rest into the broth, adding no flour or other thickener, since the collagen thickens the broth by itself.
- A second pressure-cooker recipe (TNH1) seasons with colorau, smoked paprika and a Bahian spice mix and cooks the mocoto 50 to 60 minutes after the pressure is reached.
- Bars in Juiz de Fora serve it in mugs or bowls with crispy pork rinds, chives and an optional quail egg cracked in; one adds sausage, bacon, carrot and potato.
- No flour needed: if the broth is thin, simmer uncovered for a few minutes.
Adapted from Itatiaia, Receita estilo Nono, o rei do caldo de mocoto and TudoGostoso, Caldo de mocoto tradicional.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.