If there’s one place one needs to visit in Brazil, no matter what city you go to, it’s the local feira, or farmer’s market. Every neighborhood or small town has at least one (please let me know if I’m wrong!)  and you can buy all sorts of things you need for the week without having to go to the supermarket.

The feira near my house on Saturdays has all sorts of fruits (and the feirantes, those selling the goods, let you taste the fruit before buying it!), vegetables, meats, fish, spices, and even flowers to decorate my apartment and random kitchen utensils!

I don’t know about many other states or cities, but at least in São Paulo, every feira has at least one booth with pasteis and another usually right in front of it that sells caldo de cana (sugar cane juice) and água de coco (coconut water).

This past Saturday, my friend and I went to the feira and decided to have pasteis and caldo de cana for lunch.  Um pastel is a deep fried pastry stuffed with all sorts of meats, cheese, fish, and vegetables.  There are even sweet pasteis with banana, chocolate, or doce de leite. The ones here run at R$3 each and are quite filling! My personal favorites? Pastel de palmito (heart of palm pastel), and pastel de chocolate com banana (chocolate and banana pastel).

<3 my pastel de palmito

After filling myself up with pasteis and caldo de cana, I started wondering if I could make pastel de feira at home… so I looked up a recipe for us and found this easy one on Tudo Gostoso em português! And then I found another on in English already on It’s all about food!

Have you ever had or made pastel?