Just For Fun,for Louisa and everyone else.

I don't remember where or when I've heard it...possibly here on Food52 in another thread.

Was the 'hidden meat' in the context of sneaking it into a Church fast day? Any idea of where your story came from? In parts of the US--around Baltimore and the Eastern Shore--the Church actually went so far as to declare muskrats 'fish' for fasting purposes. So much for scientific knowledge within the Church!

The first dish that popped into my mind was gefüllte Nudeln--filled noodles. It comes from the Swabian region of Germany, roughly the Black Forest. The dish, as my grandmother made it (she got the recipe from her mother who was from the Black Forest) consisted of a mixture of ground beef, parsley, onions, garlic, and lots of other herbs spread between two layers of egg noodle dough . The noodle was cut into diamond-shaped pieces and cooked in a rich beef broth. We had it for Maundy Thursday--which is 'Green Thursday' in German. Yearss later, I learned that this is a traditional Swabian dish during Lent, a period of fasting and abstaining from meat. The Swabians have a reputation for being rather crafty and believed that God would not know there was meat hiding between the noodle layers.

This last spring, I was looking through one of my Grandmother's cookbooks and her hand written recipe for the gefüllte Nudeln fell out. I was delighted because I always thought she made it without a recipe.

Hmmm... fun question. Most of my heritage is Germanic, so family recipes are from that part of the world. Probably my favorite is Celery Root Salad (only prepared during the holidays). If you took a traditional American potato salad, substituted cubed cooked celery root for the potatoes, and replaced the mayo with a vinagrette, you'd be very close.

I don't believe it's going to be Crème brûlée,hã KB?

Oh in Nigeria, we call that burnt part 'bottom pot'!!!! Thinking of that family recipe!

You're more than welcome as you will be if you do come to Brazil.You're gonna have lots of fun and lots of "weird" food you're probably gonna love.

Sauteeing the grain in oil first is a great technique. Really hope to make it to Brazil some day, thanks for shedding a bit of light onto Brazilian cooking!

I don't know if it might be considered a "Brazilian thing",but since we cook rice down here in a slight different way,it's pretty commom mistake as you say.We sauté the raw rice with oil and spices(usually garlic and onions)before adding water,and we use 2 parts of water for every part of rice so that in 20 min.the water is all gone and you don't need to drain it.Therefore...accident will happen sometimes and they make my mom very happy as I've mentioned.

You make crunchy rice, too? Excellent! I love discovering this dish in other cultures; it seems that people all over the world have discovered this delicious cooking "mistake." I've seen it now in Korean, Chinese, and Dominican cooking. So, is it a Portuguese thing, or Brazilian, or both?

Wow, great culinary heritage you have! I think my favorite family recipe is my dad's rice with lentils and dill. He takes the crunchy rice from the bottom of the pot —the "tahdig"— and mixes it into the rest of the rice. It's heavenly. I think he uses a TON of butter to make it taste so good, but that's his secret.