Abacaxi Com Hortela

Last semester in Brazil I had many amazing food experiences—Feijoada at Marcus’ homestay, juices at my homestay, cheap and fancy pay by kilo, moqueca in Bahia, pizza on the street, and pumpkin soup in the Chapada.  On the last day with my homestay mom we went shopping at the Mercado Central for last minute gifts.  At the end of our excursion she took me down stairs for refreshments.  I got acerola juice but she got something I hadn’t heard of before abacaxi com hortela—pineapple with mint.  She offered me some and I feel instantly in love, while quietly cursing the juice man down the block from the school where I was studying at for not having this juice.

Though I had just had it only once in Brazil my host mother had told me that it was actually very popular, and for good reason.  This was enough to convince me to try and make some of my own over winter break, and after a couple practices is now a nice treat that I can whip out for the FOOD JUSTICE house in half an hour.

Ingredients: 1 Pineapple and some mint

Materials: Blender and a knife

Cut off all the skin of the pineapple.  Do as thorough of a job as you want, a little skin doesn’t hurt anyone and if you cut off too much then you are losing precious juice.  Some people strain the juice later to get the leftover bits of skin out, but I don’t like spending the time and doing the dishes, so just leave it in.  Then chop up the pineapple into sizes you think your blender can handle then put about half in the blender along with about two cups of water, play it by ear.  You can wait till now or later to add in about ten or so mint leaves (tear off the stems).

Blend however much you want, probably until it gets pretty frothy.  Then pour it out and repeat for the other half of the pineapple.  Sometimes I add in sugar if I feel like it, but a lot of the time it really doesn’t need it.  Let the juice cool in the fridge then stir up again before serving.  ‘Round here we call this thing the Juice of the Gods.