Brazilian table chili sauce — malagueta peppers in a cachaça-vinegar pickle. The Bahia and Minas shaker for everything from feijoada to grilled fish.
Malagueta (Capsicum frutescens) is native to Brazil, cultivated by indigenous peoples before Portuguese contact — it was not brought from Africa. Its name was borrowed from melegueta (grains of paradise), an unrelated West African spice traded by the Portuguese, because the chili's heat recalled it. The cachaça-vinegar pickle form is northeastern, codified in Bahian quitanda kitchens by the 1800s.
Bar do Mineiro in Santa Teresa, Rio, makes their molho with malagueta and dendê (palm oil) — the oil floats on top, you spoon it through. The pickle holds 6 months at room temp; vinegar above 4% acidity is the safety floor (lower and botulism is a real risk with garlic in oil).
Cloudy red-orange liquid, whole peppers floating, slick of dendê oil on top in the Bahian style. Heat 50,000-100,000 SHU but the sweet cachaça undertow softens it. Sour-sweet-hot all at once. Two drops on a feijoada plate, no more.
Hot-pickle: bring cachaça-vinegar (1:3) to 80°C, pour over the peppers and a smashed garlic clove, seal. The alcohol extracts capsaicinoids (fat-soluble) that vinegar alone misses; cachaça's sugar residues mellow the heat curve. Ready 7 days, peaks at 30.
Variations
Bahian-style with dendê oil floating, Mineiro-style with pure cachaça-vinegar, the Recife version with cashew vinegar instead of cachaça, and molho de pimenta verde (green malagueta picked early, milder).
On the Palate
Where Brazilian Molho Apimentado sits in the Brazilian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
4 steps · 9 min active + 14 days waiting
- 15 min
Stem and chop 200 g fresh malagueta peppers; pack into a sterilized jar.
- 23 min
Pour over 200 ml cachaça + 100 ml white-wine vinegar to submerge.
Watch outPour the cachaça-vinegar to fully cover the peppers — any bit poking above the liquid can mold instead of pickling.
- 320160 min
Add 1 tsp salt; seal and rest 2 weeks at room temperature to mellow.
Watch outSeal tight and leave it — the heat mellows and rounds out over two weeks, so resist tasting too early when it's still raw and harsh.
- 41 min
Use as table shaker for feijoada, grilled fish, or any savory dish.
