''Coxinha'' (, ''little hickenthigh'') is a popular food in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

consisting of chopped or shredded

chicken meat Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world. Owing to the relative ease and low cost of raising chickens—in comparison to mammals such as cattle or hogs—chicken meat (commonly called just "chicken") and chicken eggs have becom ...

, covered in

dough Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavenin ...

, molded into a shape resembling a teardrop, battered and fried.

History

''Coxinhas'' were originally made with any part of the chicken, and its traditional shape is meant to resemble a drumstick. In its modern processed form it may have originated in

Limeira Limeira is a city in the eastern part of the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The population is 308,482 (2020 est.) in an area of 581 km2. The elevation is 588 m. It is 154 km from São Paulo, the state capital, and 1011 km f ...

in the 19th century. In the book ''Stories & Recipes'', Nadir Cavazin says that the son of

Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil , house = Braganza , father = Pedro II of Brazil , mother = Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies , birth_date = , birth_place = Palace of São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , death_date = , death_place = ...

(1846-1921) and

Prince Gaston, Count of Eu Prince Gaston of Orleans, Count of Eu (french: link=no, Louis Philippe Marie Ferdinand Gaston; 28 April 1842 – 28 August 1922) was a French prince and military commander who fought in the Spanish-Moroccan War and the Paraguayan War. He was ...

, a child who lived in seclusion for having mental problems, had a favorite dish, chicken, but only ate the drumstick. One day, not having enough drumsticks, the cook decided to turn a whole chicken into drumsticks, shredding it and making the filling for a flour dough shaped into a drumstick. The child endorsed the results.

Empress Teresa Cristina Dona Teresa Cristina (14 March 182228 December 1889), nicknamed "the Mother of the Brazilians", was the Empress consort of Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, who reigned from 1831 to 1889. Born a Princess of the Kingdom of the Two Sicil ...

, when she was visiting him, could not resist the tasty delicacy; she liked it so much she requested that the master of the imperial kitchen learn how to prepare the snack.

Preparation

The ''coxinha'' is based on dough made with wheat flour and chicken broth and optionally mashed potato, which is filled with shredded spiced chicken meat, or a whole chicken drumstick. The filling consists of

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

catupiry Catupiry () is one of the most popular brands of cheese in Brazil. It was developed by Italian immigrant Mario Silvestrini in the state of Minas Gerais in 1911. The name derives from the Tupi word meaning "excellent". Catupiry is a soft, mild ...

cheese or

requeijão Requeijão () is a milk-derived product, produced in Portugal and Brazil. It is a loose, ricotta-like cheese used to make cheese spreads. It can be a good substitute to mild, unsalty ricotta. This variety is sometimes sold in the markets wrapped ...

and

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onio ...

s, parsley and

scallion Scallions (also known as spring onions or green onions) are vegetables derived from various species in the genus '' Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions and their close relatives include garlic, shallot, leek, c ...

s, and occasionally

tomato sauce Tomato sauce (also known as ''salsa roja'' in Spanish or ''salsa di pomodoro'' in Italian) can refer to many different sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish, rather than as a condiment. Tomato sauces are c ...

turmeric Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast ...

. The ''coxinha'' is coated in batter, then in

bread crumbs Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thicken ...

manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated ...

flour and

deep fried Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. Norma ...

. It is shaped to roughly resemble a chicken drumstick. The dough used to coat the filling is generally prepared with the broth of the chicken, enhancing the flavor of the coating.

Variations

Different variations of the original are becoming more prevalent today – for example, the ''coxinha mineira'', for which the filling includes maize, so named because

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

is deemed a culinary tradition in the state of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

, as well as areas where the caipira and sertanejo dialects are spoken. Cheese ''coxinhas'' are also very common in snack bars. In

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in Brazil's South Region. The Curitiba Metropolitan area ...

, chicken ''coxinhas'' filled with

cheddar Cheddar most often refers to either: *Cheddar cheese *Cheddar, Somerset, the village after which Cheddar cheese is named Cheddar may also refer to: Places * Cheddar, Ontario, Canada * Cheddar Yeo, a river which flows through Cheddar Gorge and t ...

and

Araucaria nuts ''Araucaria'' (; original pronunciation: .ɾawˈka. ɾja is a genus of evergreen Conifer, coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. There are 20 extant taxon, extant species in New Caledonia (where 14 species are endemism, ende ...

can be found in local restaurants. To mark the cheese they usually have a toothpick where the bone would be in a chicken ''coxinha''. Coxinhassemfritar

Other unconventional ingredients, generally used for home-made ''coxinhas'' made by aficionados, include peas, chopped button mushrooms, palmheart, carrot, cooked and seasoned cashew apples, unripe

jackfruit The jackfruit (''Artocarpus heterophyllus''), also known as jack tree, is a species of tree in the fig, mulberry, and breadfruit family ( Moraceae). Its origin is in the region between the Western Ghats of southern India, all of Bangladesh, ...

or unripe breadfruit, as well as

whole-wheat flour Whole-wheat flour (in the US) or wholemeal flour (in the UK) is a powdery substance, a basic food ingredient, derived by grinding or mashing the whole grain of wheat, also known as the wheatberry. Whole-wheat flour is used in baking of breads ...

batter or even a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

version of either

textured vegetable protein Textured or texturized vegetable protein (TVP), also known as textured soy protein (TSP), soy meat, or soya chunks is a defatted soy flour product, a by-product of extracting soybean oil. It is often used as a meat analogue or meat extender ...

(soy meat) or

falafel Falafel (; ar, فلافل, ) is a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter in Middle Eastern cuisine (especially in Levantine and Egyptian cuisines) made from ground chickpeas, broad beans, or both. Nowadays, falafel is often served ...

with appropriate seasonings so its taste resembles a traditional coxinha more closely. These variants are rarely found in snack bars.

Related foods

''Coxinha'' literally means "little thigh", and it is how deep fried chicken legs are informally named in Brazil (''coxa frita'' means a deep fried chicken leg, while ''sobrecoxa frita'' stands for a deep fried upper drumstick; It is not uncommon for people having a strong preference for certain

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...

cuts over others). Battered and deep fried chicken breast pieces, for example, are generally called by a name of English influence, nugget.

Political term

Starting in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

, the word "" has been used as an insult, now referring loosely to people who display a lavish but dull lifestyle, hold conservative political opinions and also police officers.

References

External links

Coxinha recipe
at SouthAmericanFood.about {{Street food Brazilian cuisine Snack foods Street food Chicken dishes Deep fried foods Stuffed dishes