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Shrimp Bobo

Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth: Season One: Yara Roberts' Brazil

Serves8
  • Active time:1 1/4 hr
  • Start to finish:2 1/4 hr
Adapted from The Brazilian Table, by Yara Castro Roberts and Richard Roberts
November 2009
Watch a preview of this Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth episode and it view its accompanying recipes. Plus, explore all episodes and more recipes from the show.

For fish stock

  • 2 lbs fish heads and trimmings
  • 8 cups water
  • 3 stalks celery, sliced
  • 2 medium carrots, sliced
  • 1 medium onion, halved and sliced
  • 5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
  • 2 tablespoons ground shrimp

For bobo

  • 2 lbs fresh yucca
  • 2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt (or 1 Tbsp fine salt)
  • 2 yellow-black plantains
  • 3 tablespoons palm oil (Azeite de Dendê)
  • large shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 3 lbs tomatoes (3 medium), cored, seeded, and finely chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1 cup chopped scallions (white and green parts; 1 bunch)
  • 2 cups fish stock
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • Accompaniment

    Acaça (coconut-rice flour polenta; click here for recipe), malagueta pepper sauce or tabasco

Make stock

  • Put fish heads and trimmings into a 5- to 6-quart heavy pot with water, celery, carrots, onion and garlic and bring to a boil, skimming surface as necessary. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes.
  • Pour stock through a sieve into a 3- to 4-quart pot discarding solids. Add ground shrimp and boil until stock is reduced to 2 cups, 20 to 30 minutes. Pour through a sieve into a bowl, discarding solids.
  • Cook yuca, bake plantains, and sauté shrimp while stock is reducing
  • Peel yuca and cut crosswise into 3-inch pieces, then cut each piece into 4 to 6 wedges. Put yuca in cleaned 5- to 6-quart pot with enough water to cover by 1 inch and measured salt and bring to a boil. Boil yuca, uncovered, until tender when pieced with a knife and translucent, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  • Preheat oven to 275°F.
  • Bake whole plantains on oven rack until tender and skins split, 15 to 25 minutes. When cool enough to handle, peel plantains, then cut into 1 inch slices and quarter slices lengthwise.
  • Spread 1/4 cup pastry cream on each of 4 pastries, then top with berries. Lay remaining pastries over berries.
  • Heat palm oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then add shrimp and cook, stirring, until shrimp are no longer translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Reserve.

Prepare bobo

  • Pour off all but 1 cup salty cooking liquid from yuca, then mash yuca in pot to a puree with a potato masher. Add olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, scallions, and 2 cups fish stock to yuca and bring to a boil, stirring. Simmer mixture, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 20 minutes. Stir in coconut milk, plaintains, and shrimp and cook until heated through, about 3 minutes more.
  • Serve bobó over acaça.