I'd never eaten or prepared anything like farofa before. It's basically cassava flour (aka cassava meal or manioc flour) mixed and cooked with a little bit of fat (butter or oil usually). When ready it takes the color of the fat (orange in the case of palm oil) and a grainy consistency similar to bulgur. It's served as a side dish to a variety of main dishes, including xinxim.

I'm glad I made it for novelty's sake if nothing else, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find cassava flour to make it (I found it at a Latin market, it was imported from Brazil)

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Farofa

Ingredients

• 1 cup cassava flour
• 1 tbsp. palm oil

  Instructions

  Heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and heat until bubbling. Add the manioc flour and stir until the oil is fully incorporated into the flour, about 3 minutes.
  
  

  Adapted from Brazil: A Cook's Tour