Coxinha

Coxinha is a snack I grew up eating and watching my auntie and grandma make 100s before all my birthday parties! It's crunchy on the outside, has soft smooth dough and a full of flavour filling that is hard to resist!

It's super easy to make in bulk and extremely cost effective which now makes sense why it's the go to food when entertaining a crowd in Brazil!

Dough

455g Water you used to cook the chicken

235g milk

300g whole meal flour

1tsp Salt

1tsp chicken stock powder

90g butter

Filling

1 chicken breast

1 chicken thigh

3 bay leaves

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp Salt

1 tbsp tomato Paste

2 tbs cream cheese

1 onion

5 cloves of garlic

Bunch of parsley

Method

To make the filling, cook the chicken using a pressure cooker or boil it with just the bay leaves.

While the chicken is cooking, chop the onion and garlic and fry them in some olive oil until soft and slightly golden.

Once the chicken is cooked, using two forks, pull the chicken apart then add the remaining of the filling ingredients.

To make the dough, bring the milk and butter to a boil then pour in the salt and flour and stir over low heat until it becomes a dough.

Pour the dough out onto a bench and massage it until smooth. Use something to help you do this like a rolling pin or a bench scraper as the dough will be hot.

Cover the dough when not working with it to avoid it from drying out.

Once everything is ready to go, cut the dough into even pieces and roll these into small balls. Make a cavity in the centre of the balls to place the filling, then close it while rolling it into a sort of raindrop shape.

Dip the coxinhas in milk then roll it in bread crumbs before deep frying it, baking them at 200c or freezing them for another occasion.

Enjoy!

Notes:

If you use a white flour instead, you may need more flour.

If you choose to bake these, they likely will lose their shape slightly so rolling it into balls instead might be a better idea so they look a bit nicer.

You can eat these with hot sauce or tomato sauce to add even more flavour!

Change it up!

You can make these any size you like! For a more filling and almost meal-like size, you can make them about the size of your palm, or for more nibbles/ snacking party food vibes or even kids lunchboxes if you wanted to make them smaller, bite-size almost, no bigger than the gap between you fingers when you join your thumb and forefinger together haha.

You can fill this with anything you like! In Brazil, the 3 most common fillings for this dough are cheese, ham and cheese or the chicken filling I made.

I hope you give these a try, maybe at your next party for all your friends!