A recipe is the most concentrated example of procedural register you will find — a text whose entire job is to give instructions in order. Brazilian Portuguese has a striking feature here: it freely alternates between two "instruction moods," the bare infinitive (misturar, levar ao fogo) and the você-imperative (misture, leve ao fogo), often within the same recipe. This page annotates an original brigadeiro recipe to show both, plus the se-passive (mexe-se até desgrudar), the measures and quantities, and the sequence connectives (depois, em seguida, até) that hold the steps together.
The text
An original recipe for brigadeiro, Brazil's iconic chocolate fudge ball:
Brigadeiro tradicional (rende cerca de 20 unidades)
Traditional brigadeiro (makes about 20 pieces)
Ingredientes: uma lata de leite condensado, duas colheres de chocolate em pó e uma colher de manteiga.
Ingredients: one can of condensed milk, two spoons of cocoa powder, and one spoon of butter.
Primeiro, colocar todos os ingredientes numa panela.
First, place all the ingredients in a pan.
Levar ao fogo baixo e mexer sem parar.
Bring it to low heat and stir without stopping.
Mexe-se a mistura até ela desgrudar do fundo da panela.
The mixture is stirred until it comes away from the bottom of the pan.
Depois, despeje a massa num prato untado com manteiga.
Then, pour the mixture onto a plate greased with butter.
Deixe esfriar completamente antes de enrolar.
Let it cool completely before rolling.
Em seguida, enrole pequenas bolinhas com as mãos.
Next, roll small balls with your hands.
Por fim, passe os brigadeiros no granulado de chocolate e sirva.
Finally, roll the brigadeiros in chocolate sprinkles and serve.
Dica: se a massa estiver muito mole, leve à geladeira por alguns minutos.
Tip: if the mixture is too soft, put it in the fridge for a few minutes.
Read the first three steps: colocar... levar... mexer — bare infinitives. Then the recipe switches: despeje... deixe... enrole... passe... sirva — você-imperatives. This switch mid-recipe is completely normal in Brazil and is worth understanding rather than "correcting."
The infinitive as instruction: "colocar", "levar", "mexer"
The bare infinitive (the dictionary form — colocar, levar, mexer) is used as a neutral, impersonal instruction. It addresses no one in particular; it just names the action to be done, like a label.
Colocar todos os ingredientes numa panela.
Place all the ingredients in a pan.
Levar ao fogo baixo e mexer sem parar.
Bring it to low heat and stir without stopping.
English does something different here — we use the bare imperative ("Place... Bring... Stir...") for both functions. Portuguese reserves the infinitive for a flatter, more anonymous tone: recipe cards, assembly instructions, signs (não fumar = "no smoking"). It reads as (neutral/impersonal) — there is no implied "you," so it feels less like someone bossing you around and more like a generic specification. This is one job of the impersonal infinitive: instruction without an addressee.
The você-imperative: "despeje", "deixe", "enrole", "sirva"
The other instruction mood is the affirmative imperative based on você, which in form is identical to the present subjunctive. For an -ar verb the ending flips to -e; for -er/-ir verbs it flips to -a.
Despeje a massa num prato untado.
Pour the mixture onto a greased plate. (despejar → despeje)
Deixe esfriar completamente.
Let it cool completely. (deixar → deixe)
Enrole pequenas bolinhas com as mãos.
Roll small balls with your hands. (enrolar → enrole)
Sirva os brigadeiros gelados.
Serve the brigadeiros chilled. (servir → sirva)
The vowel swap is the key mechanic and trips up English speakers constantly: an -ar verb does not keep its -a in the command. Despejar becomes despeje (not despeja); enrolar becomes enrole (not enrola). Watch the irregulars too: servir → sirva, fazer → faça, pôr → ponha, ir → vá. These are the same forms as the present subjunctive, which is why mastering one means you have mastered the other.
The se-passive in instructions: "mexe-se até desgrudar"
Recipes also use the se-passive to describe what happens to the food without naming a cook — a third, even more impersonal instruction style.
Mexe-se a mistura até ela desgrudar do fundo da panela.
The mixture is stirred until it comes away from the bottom of the pan.
Bate-se tudo no liquidificador.
Everything is blended in the blender.
Here mexe-se ("one stirs / it is stirred") has a mistura as its grammatical subject, and the verb agrees with it. If the food were plural, the verb would too: batem-se os ovos ("the eggs are beaten"). This construction lends a slightly more formal, almost textbook tone — you'll see it in traditional cookbooks more than on a quick recipe blog, where the você-imperative dominates. All three styles (infinitive, imperative, se-passive) coexist; choosing among them is a register decision.
Sequence connectives and the "until" of cooking
The skeleton of any recipe is its sequence markers — the words that tell you the order of operations.
Primeiro, colocar os ingredientes... Depois, despeje a massa.
First, place the ingredients... Then, pour the mixture.
Em seguida, enrole as bolinhas. Por fim, passe no granulado.
Next, roll the balls. Finally, roll them in the sprinkles.
The core set is primeiro (first), depois (then/after), em seguida (next, right after), por fim (finally). Equally important is até ("until"), the connective of cooking outcomes:
Mexa até desgrudar do fundo.
Stir until it comes away from the bottom.
Leve ao fogo até dourar.
Cook it until it browns.
Até + infinitive ("until [it] does X") is the standard way to express the target state — até dourar (until golden), até engrossar (until thick), até ferver (until boiling). Note até dourar uses the bare infinitive because the doer is the food itself and is left implicit. The conditional tip at the end — se a massa estiver muito mole, leve à geladeira — slips in a future subjunctive (estiver, from estar) after se, the standard mood for an open condition: "if it (turns out to) be too soft."
Quantities and measures
Brazilian recipes have their own measurement vocabulary, much of it informal and approximate:
uma lata de leite condensado
one can of condensed milk (the brigadeiro's defining unit)
duas colheres de chocolate em pó
two spoons of cocoa powder
Note the structure [quantity] + de + [ingredient]: uma colher de açúcar, duas xícaras de farinha, um copo de leite. The de is obligatory — never uma colher açúcar. A lata (the can) is itself a unit of measure in Brazil because condensed milk comes in a standard 395g can, so uma lata means a precise, well-understood amount.
Vocabulary and expressions
- leite condensado — condensed milk (the heart of countless Brazilian sweets).
- chocolate em pó / granulado — cocoa powder / chocolate sprinkles.
- fogo baixo / médio / alto — low / medium / high heat.
- mexer sem parar — to stir without stopping.
- desgrudar do fundo — to come away from the bottom (the doneness test for brigadeiro).
- untar — to grease (a pan/plate).
- a massa — the mixture/dough/batter (very general cooking term).
- render — to yield / make (rende 20 unidades).
Cultural and register note
Brigadeiro is arguably Brazil's national sweet — present at every children's birthday party (festa de aniversário), born in the 1940s and named after a brigadier, Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes. The "doneness" cue desgrudar do fundo da panela is folk knowledge every Brazilian cook knows. As for register: handwritten family recipes and quick online videos lean on the você-imperative (misture, leve, sirva) because it feels friendly and direct; older printed cookbooks and formal culinary writing favor the infinitive (misturar, levar) and the se-passive (mexe-se) for their neutral, impersonal authority. None is "more correct" — they are register choices, and a fluent reader hears the difference between a chatty food blog and a classic livro de receitas.
Common Mistakes
❌ Despeja a massa num prato. (intending a formal/written instruction)
This is the tu/colloquial form; the standard recipe imperative is the você form.
✅ Despeje a massa num prato.
Pour the mixture onto a plate.
❌ Sirve os brigadeiros gelados.
Incorrect — 'servir' → 'sirva' in the você-imperative, not 'sirve'.
✅ Sirva os brigadeiros gelados.
Serve the brigadeiros chilled.
❌ Mexe-se a mistura até desgrudar... e bate os ovos.
Inconsistent — don't switch from se-passive to bare imperative mid-step without reason; keep one register.
✅ Mexe-se a mistura até desgrudar e batem-se os ovos à parte.
The mixture is stirred until it comes away, and the eggs are beaten separately.
❌ Duas colheres chocolate em pó.
Incorrect — the measure needs 'de' before the ingredient.
✅ Duas colheres de chocolate em pó.
Two spoons of cocoa powder.
❌ Mexa até a massa desgruda do fundo.
Incorrect — after 'até' use the infinitive (desgrudar) here, not the indicative.
✅ Mexa até a massa desgrudar do fundo.
Stir until the mixture comes away from the bottom.
Key takeaways
- Brazilian recipes alternate two instruction moods: the impersonal infinitive (misturar, levar) and the você-imperative (misture, leve).
- The você-imperative swaps the theme vowel: -ar → -e, -er/-ir → -a, with irregulars like sirva, faça, ponha (= present subjunctive).
- The se-passive (mexe-se a mistura) is a third, more formal impersonal style; the verb agrees with the food.
- Até
- infinitive marks the target outcome: até dourar, até engrossar.
- Measures use [quantity] de [ingredient], with the de obligatory.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Imperatives in Instructions and RecipesA2 — How Brazilian Portuguese uses the imperative — and the infinitive — in recipes, manuals, signs, and ads.
- The Infinitive in BR PortugueseA2 — Brazilian Portuguese has two infinitives — the regular (impersonal) one and a unique personal infinitive that carries person endings.
- Passive SentencesB1 — Building passive sentences in Brazilian Portuguese — the ser-passive with 'por', the se-passive for agentless statements, and why everyday speech prefers active recasts.
- Se-Passive (Sintética Passive)A2 — The passive with se plus a third-person verb that agrees with the logical object — vende-se, alugam-se — and why Brazilians often skip the agreement.
- Imperative SentencesA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese gives commands, requests and instructions — the subjunctive-based você form vs the colloquial tu form, negative commands, softeners, and the polite question alternative.