Category: Main Dish

(image credit: www.acontece.com)

My family loves Feijoada à Transmontana – Portuguese Bean Stew that I make on cold winter days. This recipe for Feijoada à Brasileira is similar but it uses black beans which gives the stew and meat a dark rich color. Known references to the dish in Brazil, go back almost 100 years ago when an article about feijoada appeared in; Diario de Pernambuco, in Recife, August 7, 1833.

This is perfect dish to serve for a large group of friends! The recipe seems complicated but it’s relatively easy because the stew cooks in one pot. I’ve included the recipe for the sides which are also easy to make and require few ingredients. I also have the recipe for the national drink of Brazil;  “Caipirinha” which is typically served with the feijoada!

Caipirinha Recipe

1 lime (quarted)

2 teaspoons sugar

2 ounces cachaça liquor

Place the lime and sugar in a thick glass. Mash the sugar and lime together. Add ice. Add the cachaca and stir well.

(image credit: foodviva.com)

 

The recipe is also posted in the Portuguese language below for my Brazilian followers!

If you’re wondering why the recipe calls for 2 oranges? It’s because you use 1 orange to cook in the stew to cut the fattiness in the meats. The other orange is served on the side as a garnish to clean your palette.

This recipe is adapted from a Brazilian foodie website run by a group of four friends which include an advertising agent, an architect, an administrator, and an attorney. They were very helpful and also sent me a very informative article on the history of “Feijoada” which is fascinating!

“Food goes beyond the taste, aroma, color and texture … Every food has a story!  An advertising agent, an architect, an administrator and an attorney … what do they… have in common? Besides the passion for two wheels, friendship, and charm they have an immense curiosity for cuisine.  Mix it with travel, history, tasting, and with motorcycling! We decided to begin our on the road culinary search on our motorcycles. We go behind the history of food, wherever it is! Come travel along our roads as we explain about food and have fun around the table!

This is; “every food has a story”…

Traditional “Feijoada a Brasileira” recipe adapted from Toda Comida tem Historia

Ingredients:

1/2  pound of beef jerky

1/2  pound of salted or smoked pork ribs

1/2 pound of salted pig trotters (optional)

1/4 pound of  salted pork tail

1/4 pound of salted pork ears

1/4 to 2/3 pound of smoked or salted pork Loin

1/4 pound of sausage (Paio Portuguese Sausage)

1/4 pound of Portuguese chourica sausage

1/4 pound  of smoked ox tongue

1/8 pound of cured bacon

2 pounds of uncooked black beans

2 cups chopped onion

6 minced garlic cloves

6 bay  leafs

1/4 cup olive oil

2 oranges (1 for cooking, 1 for garnish)

Sides

Collards

2 pounds Collard greens

2 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons olive oil

Rice

2 cups rice

4 cups water

1 tablespoon of butter

salt

Cassava

1/2 pound of cassava (manioc) flour

1 onion (chopped)

3 garlic cloves

6 tablespoons flour

salt

Instructions:

Prepare the beans the day before:

Pour the black beans into a bowl and discard any stones or debris. Wash them in a colander under running cold water and place them back into the bowl. Cover with cold water 3 inches above the beans and let soak in the refrigerator overnight.  The beans will double in size. Drain them and set aside for cooking.

Wash and clean salted meats, removing excess fat and nerves. Let soak in water for 24 hours in the refrigerator, changing the water three or four times during this period.

Day of cooking:

Boil salted meats in whole pieces for about 20 minutes over high heat, and through out the water.  In a large heavy soup pan saute the onion and garlic in 1/4 cup of olive oil on medium heat. Add the beans, bay leaves and oranges cut in halves. Add the meats in the following order; beef jerky, pig feet and ear. Add enough water to cover the meats, stir and cook on low medium heat. Half an hour later add the tongue, tail and ribs. Half hour later add the pork loin, the sausages, and bacon, cook for a few minutes and remove any of the fat that is rising to the surface.

Remove the orange halves and bay leafs, and cook for 2 hours on low simmering heat stirring very often so it does not stick. After two hours test the degree of doneness of the meats by piercing with a fork. Remove the meats that are done and set aside. Continue cooking the remaining meats until fork tender. Remove meats, cut them into small serving size pieces and return them to the pot with the beans. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes on low heat to incorporate the flavors.

Serve with white rice and steamed cabbage in olive oil and garlic, and a beautiful crumbly cassava.

Collard green preparation:

Wash, pat dry and remove the stem from the collards. Stack the leaves on top of each other and form a roll. Cut the collards into thin strips.

Saute one garlic clove in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until translucent. Add the collards a dash of salt and cook for about 3-5 minutes stirring continuously until tender.

Set aside and reheat if necessary on low heat before serving.

White rice preparation:

Bring 4 cups of water to a rolling boil. Add 2 cups of rice, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of butter. Stir, lower heat to medium, cover and cook for 15 minutes stirring a few times.

Remove from heat, leave covered until ready to serve.

Cassava preparation:

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil on medium heat until translucent. Add the flour a few tablespoons at a time while stirring until it is cooked and golden brown.

Set aside and serve warm.

(image credit: .esquinamagica.com.br)

History of Feijoada

The popular most widespread explanation of the origin of feijoada is that the masters – the coffee farms, and the gold mines of the sugar mills – supplying slaves to the “remnants” of pigs when they were carneados. The cooking these ingredients with beans and water, was to give rise to revenue. This version, however, does not hold, either in culinary tradition, is lighter in historical research. According to Carlos Augusto Ditadi, specialist in cultural affairs and historian of the National Archives of Rio de Janeiro, in an article published in the Gula Magazine, May 1998, the alleged origin of feijoada is merely contemporary legend, born of modern folklore, a romanticized view social and cultural relations of slavery in Brazil.

The dietary pattern of the slave does not differ fundamentally in eighteenth-century Brazil. Still based on cassava flour or corn made ​​with water and a few more additions, ie, which had been established since the early days. The slave society of Brazil in the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, was constantly plagued by shortages and high prices of basic foods, due to the monoculture, the exclusive dedication to mining and the system of slave labor, there are rare deaths due to poor diet including the death of lords themselves.

The slave could not be bullied simply because it was expensive and the cost base of the economy. Should eat three times a day. Usually lunched at 8 o’clock in the morning, dined at 1 o’clock and dined around 8 or 9 o’clock at night. In historical references on the menu of slaves, found the clear presence of corn meal mush, or cassava flour, besides beans seasoned with salt and fat, served very thin and the occasional appearance of a piece of beef or pig. Harvested some orange complemented the rest of the foot, which prevented scurvy. Sometimes, at the end of good coffee harvest, the foreman of the ranch could even get a whole pig slaves. But that was the exception. Recognized no historical reference about a poor and humble feijoada, elaborated within the most sad and starving senzalas no.

There is also a sales receipt for the Imperial House of April 30, 1889, a butcher in the city of Petropolis, State of Rio de Janeiro, in which one sees that ate up green meat, veal, lamb, pork, sausage, blood sausage, liver, kidneys, tongue, brains, entrails and ox tripe sauces. This proves that not only were slaves who ate these ingredients, and they were by no means “leftovers”. Instead, they were considered delicacies. In 1817, Jean-Baptiste Debret now report the regulation of the profession of tripeiro in the city of Rio de Janeiro, who were street vendors, and which sourced these parts of the animals at slaughterhouses from cattle and pigs. Debret also reports that his brains were going to hospitals, and liver, heart and tripe (cow, cattle and pigs) were used to make polenta, commonly sold for slaves to gain or blinders in the squares and streets of the city. This practice, which arises, in Rio de Janeiro, is called “the angu Bahia”, mainly because it takes in its composition, palm oil (palm oil).

Therefore, its creation and name has to do with ways of making Portuguese, the regions of Extremadura, the Beiras and Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro, mixing beans of various kinds – minus the black beans (of American origin) – sausages, ears and pig’s foot. In fact, cooked are common in Europe, as French cassoulet, which also leads beans in its preparation. In Spain, the Madrid native Asturian stew and pork and, in Italy, the Milanese casseruola or casserola beans are prepared with chickpeas. Apparently, all of these dishes were similar to that ugly, it was increased with the passage of time, becoming even in the dish of the present development. Cascudo noted that its formula is still in development.

The feijoada seems to be already well known in the early nineteenth century, as evidenced by a notice published in the Diario de Pernambuco, in Recife, from August 7, 1833, in which a restaurant, Hotel Theatre, newly opened, informs that Thursdays would be served “the Brazilian feijoada”. On March 3, 1840, in the same newspaper, Father Carapuceiro published an article in which he said:

“In families where the real food is unknown where regabofes take, and it is usual practice comezinha convert into feijoada fragments from dinner when they call burying the bones […] You can lay in a large pot or cauldron leftover turkey, roasting pigs, fatacões bacon and ham, moreover good vassalhos jerky aka Ceará, everything will mix with the beans essential: everything is reduced to a grease “!

–

In 1848, the same Diário de Pernambuco already announced the sale of “beef bacon, suitable for stews, 80 reis pound”. On January 6, 1849, the Jornal do Commercio of Rio de Janeiro, is a statement that the newly installed eatery “New Coffee do Commercio” near the tavern of “Fame Coffee with Milk”, will in all Tuesdays and Thursdays, at the request of many customers, “Bella Feijoada to Brazilleira”.

composition

Full feijoada, as we know, accompanied by white rice, orange slices, braised kale and farofa, was very renowned restaurant in Rio G. Lobo, who worked on General Street Hall, 135, in the city center of Rio de Janeiro . The establishment, founded in the late nineteenth century, disappeared in 1905, with the works of enlargement of the street Uruguayana. With the construction of Avenida Presidente Vargas, in the 1940s, this street disappears definitive.

In the books “Chest Bones” and “Iron Floor”, Pedro Nava describes the feijoada G. Wolf, praising the one prepared by Master Wolf. Especially, it is revealed in the presence of black beans, a Rio predilection. Contemporary revenues would have migrated from the establishment G. Wolf kitchen to other restaurants in town, as well as São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Bahia. Bars and taverns of the great cities of the East Central also adopted successfully. But caveat is that Pedro Nava (…) “before the venerable evolution of Latino dishes.”

“In my Chest Bones said, repeating Noronha Santos, who is legitimately complete feijoada carioca dish. Was invented in Old Hall Street General, the famous restaurant of G. Wolf, whose name was said in Globe contracted. Emphasis added now the “invented” to score well marked its meaning of “finding.” we can not say that it was spontaneous creation.’s venerable before the evolution of Latino dishes like French cassoulet which is a ragout of white beans with goose meat , duck or lamb – which asks cooker stoneware – cassole – so be prepared.

– Pedro Nava in “Iron Floor”

The feijoada, anyway, become popular among all social classes in Brazil, always a spirit of festivity and celebration, far from remembering shortage. Became famous in remembrance those prepared in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia by Tia Ciata.

And previously, the writer Joaquim José de França Júnior, text 1867, notionally describes a picnic in the field of Old Jail, serving a feijoada with “(…) Loin, pork head, guts, mocotós, language Rio Grande, ham, beef jerky, sausage, bacon, sausages (…) “, and, in 1878, describes a” feijoada in [Paqueta] “, where it says:” (…) The word “feijoada “whose origin is lost in the mists of time of the King our Lord does not always means the same thing. in common sense, feijoada is a succulent and savory delicacy of our ancestors, the bastion of poor table, ephemeral whim of banquet of rich, essentially the national dish, as the theater of Pena, and the thrush of felt endeixas Gonçalves Dias. figuratively, that word refers to binge, that is, “a role made ​​between friends in remote or little patent “(…)”.

Currently, it spreads throughout the country, as the most representative Brazilian cuisine recipe. Revised, enlarged and enriched, feijoada is no longer exclusively a dish. Today, as also noted Cascudo, is a complete meal.

Text reference: Gula Magazine

Feijoada tradicional

Ingredientes

200 g. de carne seca bovina
200 g. de costela de porco salgada, ou defumada
200 g. de pé de porco salgado
100 g. de rabo de porco salgado
100 g. de orelha de porco salgada
150 g. de lombo de porco defumado ou salgado
100 g. de paio
100 g. de linguiça portuguesa
100 g. de língua de boi defumada
050 g. de bacon
900 g. de feijão preto
200 g. de cebola picada (para o tempero do feijão)
100 g. de alho picado (para o tempero do feijão)
006 fls. de louro (para o tempero do feijão)
002 un. de laranjas com casca (bem lavadas)

Modo de fazer

Limpar bem as carnes salgadas, tirando o excesso de gorduras e nervuras, limpando os pêlos e colocando-as de molho em água por 24 horas, trocando-se a água três a quatro vezes durante este período.

Ferva as carnes salgadas em peças inteiras, durante mais ou menos 20 minutos em fogo forte, e jogue a água fora, pois nela está todo o excesso de gordura. Coloque então as carnes para cozinhar de forma definitiva, já com o feijão, as folhas de louro e as laranjas cortadas em metades, na seguinte ordem: carne seca, pé e orelha. Meia hora depois coloque a língua, o rabo e a costela, e após meia hora, coloque o lombo, a linguiça, o paio e o bacon, cuidando para tirar e jogar fora, durante todo o cozimento, a gordura que for subindo à superfície.

Em uma frigideira, doure bem a cebola e o alho em duas xícaras de óleo previamente aquecido, colocando na panela do cozimento, junto com as últimas carnes para cozinhar, retirando antes as metades das laranjas, que já cumpriram a sua missão de ajudar a cortar a gordura das carnes. Após duas horas comece a testar o grau de cozimento da carnes com o garfo, pois nem todas chegam ao grau de maciez ao mesmo tempo, retirando e reservando as que já estiverem no ponto.

Quando todas as carnes e o feijão estiverem no ponto, retire e corte as carnes em pedaços pequenos para servir, voltando para a panela com o feijão e cozinhando por mais 10 a 15 minutos em fogo brando.

Sirva com arroz branco e couve refogada no azeite e alho, e uma bela farofa de mandioca.