Mbejú

Ingredients

• Cassava starch500 g
• Fresh salty cheese — grated350 g
• Lard or butter120 g
• Milk100 ml
• Corn flour100 g
• Salt1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Mix the cassava starch with the corn flour and salt in a wide bowl.

   4 min

2. 2

   Rub the soft fat into the dry mix with your fingers until it looks like damp sand.

   8 min

3. 3

   Work in the grated cheese, still rubbing the mixture by hand.

   6 min

4. 4

   Add the milk a spoon at a time, until the crumb just holds when squeezed in your fist.

   6 min

5. 5

   Heat a dry pan over medium without adding a drop of oil.

   4 min

6. 6

   Tip in a centimetre of crumb and press it down with a spatula across the whole surface.

   6 min

7. 7

   Cook it five minutes, flip it with a plate and colour the second side.

   22 min

About the dish

The dough is not kneaded but rubbed by hand into crumbs. It stays loose right up to the pan, and pressing it into a ball ruins the bread.

The crumb is tipped into a dry hot pan and pressed with a spatula. What binds it is the melting cheese, not water and not egg.

Mbejú is a Guaraní dish, and the name means flatbread in Guaraní. In Paraguay it is eaten with mate at breakfast the year round.

Worth knowing

• — Use as little milk as possible. Extra moisture turns the crumb into dough and the mbejú comes out dense and rubbery.
• — Do not grease the pan. There is fat enough in the crumb, and added oil makes the bread greasy outside and raw within.
• — Turn it with a plate rather than a spatula. The bread is held together by cheese alone and breaks in half on a spatula.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

460 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

48 g

More from Paraguay

• Sopa paraguaya — A dense corn and cheese bake with onion which, despite its name, is eaten with a fork.
• Chipa — Bread rings of cassava starch and cheese, with no wheat and no yeast.
• Vori vori — Chicken soup with corn-and-cheese dumplings, Paraguayan winter food.