Feijoada
Feijoada is a traditional Brazilian black bean and pork dish. Although Brazilians often eat beans every day, Feijoada is special due to its different cuts of pork and the different, much slower cooking methods of the beans. Feijoada is usually eaten in celebrations and never cooked in small portions. It was designed to bring people together like no other dish can. Let me know what you think of it in the comments below.
INGREDIENTS:
700g black Beans
400g (salt cured) pork loin
400g (salt cured) pork ribs
4 pork sausages
200g bacon
1 smoked pork hock
5 bay leaves
1-2 onion
1 head garlic
Salt
Pepper
1tsp smoked paprika
1tsp cumin powder
1/2 bunch Parsley
1 orange
To serve:
1 Kale
Rice
NOTES:
Meat
If you can find dry cured meat soak it for 12hours changing water in between.
If you asked your butcher to wet salt cure it; simply soak it for 2-4 hours.
Beans
You don’t have to soak the beans overnight, but you can. Minimum 4 hours is all you need. Pour half the water out and fill it up again halfway through
Let’s get cooking!
METHOD:
Chop the loin and ribs into more or less 3 cm pieces. They should be big enough to see but just over bite size.
Pour the water you soaked them in out.
In a large pot, fry these until golden. You shouldn’t need much oil to begin with, pork can be quite fatty and as you cook the cuts, they will start to release some of that fat.
Remove the golden cuts from the pot and set aside.
In the same pot, grill the sausages until golden on the outside, cut them into large pieces, then return them to the pot with the bacon.
Once all golden, remove from the pot and set aside separately to the loin and ribs.
In the same pot again, fry the onion and garlic and pour in any of the juices that have drained into the bottom of both bowls you set the meat aside earlier.
Once golden, return the rib and loin cuts back into the pot, add the hock, beans and bay leaves.
Top up with water as needed and let it cook in medium heat for 1-1.5 hours stirring occasionally and topping up with water as needed.
Once the beans have started to get soft, add the remaining pork (ie sausage and bacon) the spices, parsley, salt and pepper and let it cook for another hour.
Cut the orange in half, submerge it in the food and cook for another 30minutes.
The final dish should be saucy and the sauce should be slightly thick, not like custard thick, but thick in the sense that it's not runny and clear like water.
If the dish is not saucy enough, simply add more water to to the pot and allow it to cook so the water thickens. Remove the orange before serving.
Eat with rice, kale and if possible, 'farofa' = toasted cassava flour.
While everything is cooking, you can make rice the Brazilian way and kale with plenty of garlic, too!
Rice the Brazilian way:
1/2 an onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 cups of white rice
4 cups of water
1 tsp salt
Wash your rice.
In a pot, fry your onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil.
Once the garlic is golden add the rice, salt and water and stir.
Cover with a lid and let it cook on low-medium heat until the water has evaporated.
