Guest Chef Recipe: Halibut & Green Papaya Moqueca
Chef Emme Ribeiro Collins once beat Bobbly Flay with a Moqueca. Here is one of her takes on this traditional Afro-Bahian seafood stew.
One of the most rewarding parts of building The Carioca Kitchen community has been connecting with women in food who are sharing our cuisine and their own stories about growing up Brazilian in the US. Chef Emme Ribeiro Collins has voiced sentiments about her upbringing abroad that resonate deeply with my own experience. We shared the struggle to feel seen, to stay bonded with our culture when it was underrepresented, and the lifetime journey of trying to qualify our story and our heritage. In addition to running the Baiana Pop Up in Seattle, Emme hosts a podcast called Dishin Up Diaspora, exploring these topics through conversations on how food connects us to culture, history and each other.
Emme was also recently featured in the groundbreaking article “These Chefs Want You to Pay Attention to Afro Brazilian Food” in Saveur. It included her recipe for Acarajé, and is the first feature for this dish in a major U.S. food publication. “We are taught that [Afro Brazilian] food is bad, that it’s low-level, that it doesn’t deserve to be on a plate at a restaurant,” Collins tells me. “My culture deserves to be seen and acknowledged and put on a pedestal just as much as French cuisine, Italian cuisine, and Asian cuisine.”
Our community is working towards representation of our food, and our collective and collaborative energy fills my Brazilian soul on a daily basis. Please enjoy this recipe from Chef Emme and be sure to follow her journey, this Brazilian is going places!
View a video fo this recipe here.
Halibut & Green Papaya Moqueca
Servings: 4
What You Need
3 tablespoons palm oil
1 jumbo yellow onion, sliced
1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1 small green papaya (or about 1 cup), medium diced
1 teaspoon of salt
1lb halibut, cut into 6 filets
1/2 lime, juiced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1 tomato, sliced
Steps
In a large deep sauté pan or a Dutch oven add the palm oil and onion and sauté on medium high heat for 1 minute.
Reduce heat to medium heat, add coconut milk, green papaya, and water. Season with the salt and let simmer until papaya becomes tender, about 10-15 minutes.
Add halibut, lime juice, cilantro and sliced tomato and cook, stirring occasionally, until fish is cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Serving Suggestion
Serve over rice and with farofa if you can make, it or get some from a Brazilian Market.
