Authentic Brazilian Home Cooking

A warm, personal introduction to Brazilian cooking from food blogger Olivia Mesquita, whose recipes are rooted in the dishes her grandmother made in Brazil. The book covers 60 recipes spanning the full range of a Brazilian table, from street food snacks and hearty mains to iconic desserts like brigadeiro and mousse de maracuja.

Why Start Here

Most Brazilian cookbooks either lean heavily on restaurant-level technique or focus on a single region. Mesquita takes a different approach: she writes for the home cook who wants to put real Brazilian food on the table without tracking down obscure ingredients or spending all day in the kitchen. The recipes come from family tradition, not professional kitchens, which means the portions, timing, and ingredient lists are calibrated for real life.

You get the essentials: feijoada (black bean stew with pork), coxinha (chicken croquettes), pastel de bacalhau (salt cod pastries), and baiao de dois (rice with black-eyed peas, beef, and cheese). The dessert chapter alone is worth the price, covering brigadeiro, beijinho, and passion fruit mousse. Each recipe includes clear instructions and tips for substituting hard-to-find ingredients with what you can get at a regular supermarket.

The book is organized logically, moving from lighter dishes to heavier mains and then desserts, so you can start with something simple and build your confidence before tackling a full feijoada spread.

What to Expect

A compact book at 152 pages with color photography. The recipes are straightforward and most can be completed in under an hour. Mesquita writes with the casual authority of someone who grew up eating these dishes and has spent years teaching them to an international audience through her blog. This is not an encyclopedic reference, but a focused, practical starting point that will get you cooking Brazilian food confidently and quickly.