I remember the first time I ever tried Brazilian-style pão de queijo (cheese bread). It was around fifteen years ago and was my first Fogo de Churrascaria experience. Amply supplied with a heap of cold bar food items on one plate and an array of glistening beef and pork cuts on another, out came a warm basket of little wonderful balls of bread.

The size of golf balls and not so distant relative of the French gougère, the pão de queijo were moist, airy, chewy and teased of cheese umami. That day I let loose on that bread. And I never let loose on bread. I’m Asian. I go crazy over rice, or tofu or some variation of fermented vegetable, but bread never really found a firm home on my palate.

Over the years, I’ve had different varieties of the Brazilian bread. Some places served it more dense than I cared for. Other places had versions that were gritty and almost like oil-heavy balls of corn bread with speckles of cheese flavor. And sadly, I’ve had some served cold, hard as rocks in texture and lacking complete flavor.

Okay, with that buildup I make it sound like I eat pão de queijo every day – I don’t. But I did research various recipes and found that I like this simple one published by Elise Bauer from Simply Recipes. The first time I made this recipe, the texture of the bread was spot on. It had that moist-airy-chewy trifecta that wooed me from years ago. However, the flavor of the first batch lacked that umami I remembered with just using Latin queso fresco recommended in the recipe. Although, I will say after popping six more of these, this version really grew on me.

So I ran the recipe again, but this time I substituted grated parmesan for queso fresco. I saw other recipes call for parmesan instead and this struck me as the “ah ha” in my flavor problem. This was a big boost, as it should be. Queso fresco is a mild young cheese, similar to mozzarella. Parmesan is aged, stinky and rich in character.

The one last thing about this recipe. I would fill each muffin openings in the pan only three-quarter full. Any more then a) they’ll get bigger than normal pão de queijo (which, incidentally, doesn’t diminish their deliciousness), and b) their “tops” will get bulbous while cooking and connect with the other ones that are cooking in the pan.

Pão de Queijo recipe (adapted from Simply Recipes):

Ingredients:

- 1 egg

- 1/3 cup olive or vegetable oil

- 2/3 cup milk

- 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour

- 1/2 cup cheese, queso fresco or parmesan, grated

- 1 teaspoon of salt

Equipment:

- 1 mini-muffin pan

- Blender

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1) Preheat oven to 400°F.

2) Apply a thin coating of oil in each muffin opening in the muffin pan.

3) Put all of the ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth.

4) Pour pão de queijo mixture into each muffin opening about ¾ full.

5) Place muffin pan on the oven’s middle rack and bake for 15-20 minutes, until completely puffy and just a little browned.

6) Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes.

7) Serve warm

- by Gene Lee, Food and More blog

– Gene Lee writes about International Cuisine for the AJC Dining Team. He also publishes his own blog, Eat, Drink, Man… A Food Journal.