pao de queijo - brazilian cheese balls

after a lovely lovely homecooked all brazillian meal... i was inspired! to recreate my own...


we had this delish meal at f&a's place... an authentic feijoada - a slow cook smoked meat stew with black beans, served with pan-fried chinese broccoli, slices of oranges, fried cassava, sprinkled with cassava flour...
fatty but yummo...
there were also preserved hearts of palm...

and apparently cassava root is quite toxic - it contains cyanide compounds and if not boiled first, could kill instead of fill someone's stomach... and cassava root is the ingredient for tapioca flour!

and also the main ingredient for these lovely pao de queijo - brazillian cheese balls...

to recreate these nice snacks, i got myself:

500g tapioca flour

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup water

1 cup milk

1 tsp salt

180-200g parmesan cheese

2-3 eggs

put the oil, water, milk, salt in a pan and stir until boiling

switch off heat, then add tapioca flour by stirring it in into dough

when dough cools down, add the 3 eggs (may need more flour then), and knead into smooth dough

add the grated parmesan and knead & make into small balls

these can be frozen and baked at 180-200 degrees celcius, until golden brown

the dough is quite elastic and hard to knead... it tends to stick everywhere...

bite size cheese balls...

rising in the oven...

yummo...

crunchy on the outside...

chewy on the inside