Whilst not strictly true, this kitchen actually belongs to Celeste, Mother to Brunyfire’s daughter-in-law, Vivi – this tiny, ship’s galley like kitchen has been very much the domain of Antonia Lina Machado, Vivi’s Aunt, during Christmas and New Year 2016. This morning, it’s a classic Brazilian breakfast favourite – rabanada.
This afternoon heralds the arrival of the eldest son of the family, Vinicius, and the rabanada are a teatime treat, so the two Matriachs are working up a sweat on this unusually overcast and pleasantly mild Rio morning.
This simple but devastatingly tasty dish is universal, and from around the world it has different names, but basically, the recipe is the same. In this instance, sliced day old bread, milk, condensed milk, a couple of eggs, cinnamon, maize cooking oil and fine (or castor) sugar. 
Three quarters of a tin of condensed milk and three quarters of a litre of full cream milk are poured into a blender, along with a couple of eggs and blended until creamy.
Each bread slice is thoroughly saturated with the milk mixture…..
………then strained of any excess milk.
The maize oil is then heated, and the bread fried until golden brown. 
A neat trick to keeping the hot oil fresh – Antonia strains the oil through a clean (soap less) scrubbing pad, fluffing out the mesh to fill a perforated ladle with a nest to collect the residue, thus refreshing the oil to continue cooking with.
Once fried, each slice is left to drain on kitchen paper…….
……….and then dusted with a mixture of sweetened cinnamon powder mixed with castor sugar……..
……….and served…….
……….delicioso……..
brunyfire 