Fusão by Ixta Belfrage

Last Updated on February 2, 2026

Untraditional recipes inspired by Brazil

Fusão is the second cookbook from Ixta Belfrage, who first burst onto the cookbook scene with Flavour, which she co-wrote with Ottolenghi after working in his test kitchen for five years. Then came MEZCLA, her cookbook inspired by Mexico, which was filled with gutsy flavours. Her new cookbook, Fusão (Ebury), takes readers to Brazil, inspiring travel with fabulous photographs of the country by Pedro Pinho and recipes photographed by Kim Lightbody that introduce new ingredients to those unfamiliar with this cuisine.

Belfrage chose to explore her Brazilian roots (her mother is Brazilian) partly because she never felt entirely at home in the country. Food has always been her bridge to Brazil, the way she connects.  Fusão translates from Portuguese as ‘fusion’, and in researching the book, Belfrage explored the multiple influences on Brazilian cuisine.  Rather than writing a comprehensive introduction to the cuisine of this massive country, she provides suggestions of cookbooks that do just this; she takes a deep dive into particular areas and the people she met there during repeated visits. Thus emerges a personal experience of regions, recipes, and relationships. She writes about the influences on Brazilian food from waves of immigration, including the Middle East, Japan, and Italy.

Fusão is divided into chapters on vegetables, seafood, meat, and sweet dishes. There are many ingredients in the book that you will need to source from a specialist shop, but alternatives are suggested where appropriate. I started with a few recipes that included items I already had in my pantry.

I have cooked more roast chickens for my family over the past decades than I could ever calculate, so I do like to try new recipes even though everyone at my table already has their favourites. On the last sunny day of late summer, I took the plunge and served up Belfrage’s spatchcock chicken with dendé and coconut peppercorn sauce. Since I had no access to dendé (red palm oil), I substituted it with ghee and paprika. The recipe also uses urucum, which is a red seed also known as achiote in Mexico. I had to substitute with sweet paprika and black pepper. I spatchcocked the bird, which was roasted over a complex curry sauce featuring coconut milk, English mustard, maple syrup, generous black pepper, and a mixture of ginger and garlic. Having taken one bite of the chicken, my son asked for the recipe. Not only was it fabulously tender – thanks to the overnight dry brine – it was also a revelation on the taste front. Made with umpteen whole peppercorns plus ‘100 twists of the pepper mill’, I expected the chicken to be very spicy. Instead, it was intensely aromatic, with the sauce a gorgeous rust-coloured hue.

There was delight when the ginger-garlic-coriander chips arrived at the table, as I usually make roast potatoes with chicken. The chips disappeared in a trice, even though I made a double quantity. If you buy the book and make these chips – and I recommend that you do – I advise cooking many more than you think you will need. Although I rarely make chips, I could not resist these as they were so quick to prepare. No need to peel saves a lot of time. The aromatic topping is easy to put together and makes these top chips in my view.

The sweet and sour carrots with hot sauce and lime were easy to make and good to eat. While the meal did look a bit too orange, a green vegetable or a side salad would sort that out. These were super easy to make – essentially roasting them and adding hot sauce and a squeeze of lime that offset the sweetness of the vegetable and balanced the heat of the sauce. Belfrage explains that lemons do not grow well in Brazil, unlike limes, which are ubiquitous. Lemons are considered part of the lime family, with the Portuguese word for lemon translating to “Sicilian lime,” much like the French word for lime translates to “green lemon.”

Loving fish as I do, one of the most enticing recipes in Fusão is clam moqueca with coriander and lime vinaigrette, which Belfrage serves with a whole roasted plaice. Utterly beautiful, combining the classic fish stew from Bahia, the moqueca, with clams. Red palm oil, known as dendé, is an essential ingredient – although readers are told we can substitute it with coconut oil and some paprika – and Belfrage writes an impassioned few pages on the virtues of this oil, which is often misunderstood to be refined palm oil. She travels into the jungle to meet Silvio, who was raised making dendé. These personal stories, scattered throughout the book, make for fascinating reading.

Fusão can be ordered on Amazon or bought at selected bookshops, RRP £28