Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, currently in Brazil to promote his new line of perfumes and to inaugurate a photo exhibition, showed viewers how to make paella during a live broadcast Tuesday on Brazilian television.
Banderas was invited to appear on the Globo network’s morning variety show “Mais Voce” (More You), and breakfasted with the show’s host Ana Maria Braga on a Brazilian dish made of coconut and cheese tapioca, cornflour, cheese bread, mortadella, coconut cookies and milk pudding, plus typical fruit like bananas, assai, cashew nuts, starfruit, tamarind and more.
The actor’s only request for breakfast was a fried egg, which, he said, the first meal of the day must never be without. To prepare the paella, Banderas had asked for a list of ingredients including rice, chicken breast, red meat, shrimp, ripe tomatoes, cloves of garlic, parsley, saffron, olive oil, salt, onions, lemons, and green and red peppers.
“This is a California paella. Every chef has his own recipe. I cook for my friends and for my family on Sundays,” the actor said. On this his third trip to Brazil, Banderas plans to present Tuesday night in Rio and exhibition of 22 photographs he has taken, which will be auctioned off to benefit institutions that care for homeless children.
On hand for the opening of the exhibition, which has already been seen in New York and Buenos Aires, will be Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes.