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Romeu e Julieta

Minas Gerais

馃嚙馃嚪 Brazil Desserts easy 5 min prep 路 0-5 min cook serves 4 10 min start to table ~260 kcal per serving surprise

A slab of guava candy stacked on a slab of salty white cheese sounds like something a toddler assembled at the fridge. In Minas Gerais it is the default dessert, and nobody there thinks it needs defending.

Queijo minas is milky, lactic, and gently salty, which is exactly what dense, jammy goiabada is missing. It is the same fat-plus-sugar logic as cheese with quince paste in Spain, but guava brings a floral, almost musky note that quince does not have. The textures help too: the cheese is springy and moist while the paste is chewy and concentrated, so each bite stays in balance.

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The story

The pairing goes back to colonial Minas Gerais, where Portuguese settlers were making fresh white cheese and, missing the quince of home, cooked local guavas down into goiabada as a stand-in for marmelada. Cheese and guava paste ended up on the same farm tables, and the combination became an everyday finish to lunch across the state and then the country.

The Shakespearean name is surprisingly recent marketing. In the 1960s, cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa drew an ad for Cica brand goiabada with his characters dressed as Romeo and Juliet, the salty cheese playing Romeo to the sweet paste's Juliet, and the name stuck. Today it shows up everywhere from corner padarias to Festa Junina spreads, eaten cold in slices or warmed until the cheese slumps.

Fair warning: With a bland, unsalted cheese the whole thing just tastes like candy, so if you cannot find queijo minas, pick the saltiest fresh white cheese you can.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 200g (7 oz) goiabada (guava paste)the firm, sliceable kind sold in bars or flat tins, not guava jelly
  • 200g (7 oz) queijo minas frescalsubstitute queso fresco, queso blanco, or low-salt fresh mozzarella patted very dry

Method

  1. Slice the cheese into slabs about 1cm (just under 1/2 inch) thick and roughly the size of a domino.
  2. Slice the goiabada to match. If the knife drags, wipe it with a little neutral oil or hot water between cuts.
  3. Stack one slice of goiabada on each slice of cheese. That is the whole dessert, served cold or at room temperature with a fork or toothpicks.
  4. For the warm version, lay the cheese slices in a small ovenproof dish or ramekins and top each with its goiabada slice.
  5. Bake in an air fryer or oven at 180C (350F) for 5 to 7 minutes, until the cheese softens and slumps and the goiabada turns glossy at the edges.
  6. Eat the warm version right away with a spoon, while the cheese still gives.
Shopping notes
Goiabada and queijo minas are stocked at Brazilian and Latin American groceries, and guava paste (often Goya brand) is in the international aisle of many big supermarkets. Queso fresco is the easiest stand-in for the cheese; quince paste works if guava is truly unfindable, though then you are eating a different classic.
Cross-checked against: atlasobscura.com 路 196flavors.com 路 receitasnestle.com.br
Kitchen notes

Cooked it? Say how it went. Tweaks, substitutions, honest verdicts, all welcome.

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