Pastel, the Brazilian pastry that will fix your hangover

Pastel, the deep-fried hangover cure from Brazil.

Pastel, the deep-fried hangover cure from Brazil.

We already gave you some tips and tricks to get rid of your hangoverBut every country has its own traditional dishes to make the process go faster. We like to give you a taste of the international anti-hangover cuisine. This time we have a real treat from Brazil called pastel. It’s a pastry filled for example with cheese or meat. Nothing special? The fact that it’s deep fried and the ‘secret’ ingredient cachaça make pasteis (plural) a great cure for hangovers.

When asked about Brazil most people probably will mention football, carnaval and hot women in bikini on the beach. However Brazil also has quite the drinking culture. It’s not just famous footballers like Garrincha, Socrates, Adriano, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, to name a few, partying is simply in the Brazilian DNA. And you can’t really party without some good cachaça, which is often used in cocktails like caipirinha, or at least a lot of beers.

Brazilian nights are long and tough and you wouldn’t be the first person ever in search of a quality hangover cure after a night of samba and loads and loads of alcohol. That’s when you look for a stand that sells pasteis. But since it might be impossible to find one of those in many other countries, we’ll give a recipe to make them yourself. We’ll just give you the recipe for the dough, since you can fill pasteis with basically everything. From cheese to beef, chicken shrimp or palm hearts.

Ingredients:
1 kg wheat flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon chicken broth
1 tablespoon lard
2 tablespoons cachaça
Around half a liter of warm water

Preparation:
Mix the flour and salt, then add the broth and lard. Then add the cachaça to the warm water in another bowl. Start mixing this liquid with the dough in small portions. Stop when you can shape it into a ball. Be sure not to use more water than necessary. After you formed the ball of dough let it rest for 15 minutes.
After that time you can roll out the dough on the table. Of course you can shape them any way you like, as long as it’s a foldable one. Just add the stuffing of choice (see the links below for inspiration) and make sure the pasteis are properly sealed.
Then throw your creations in the deep fryer until they have a golden brown color. Drain the fat with a paper towel and serve while they are still warm.

A recipe for chicken pastel

A recipe for beef

A recipe for shrimp

When you enjoy your very own pasteis you treat yourself to a glass of caldo de cana (sugarcane juice) or a beer of course for the maximal effect.

Micky Bumbar

Check out more tasty hangover cures from around the world

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