Fish, or prawns, stewed in coconut milk and dendê palm oil with tomato, peppers, onion, lime and coriander.
What makes it moqueca baiana
Dendê palm oil and coconut milk.
Fish or prawns laid over onion, tomato and peppers, and barely stirred.
Lime and a lot of coriander; cooked and served in a clay pot.
Where it comes from
The name is often traced to the Tupi pokeka, fish wrapped in leaves and cooked over coals, though some give it an African origin instead. In Bahia the dish took on dendê and coconut milk — the palm oil through the African Atlantic, the coconut through Portuguese trade — and became one of the region's signatures.
Its neighbour Espírito Santo makes a rival version, the moqueca capixaba, and the two states argue happily about which is the real one.
How it varies
Moqueca capixaba
Espírito Santo's: annatto and olive oil, no dendê or coconut, in a black clay pot.