Feijoada

Overview

• Ingredients
• Proceedings
  • Feijoada
  • Rica
  • Orange salad
  • Couve à mineira
  • Farofa
  • Spicy sauce
  • Tomato-oignon salad
• Serving

Feijoada is a dish of black beans, served with white rice and some side dishes: sliced (skinned) oranges, couve mineiro (can eventually be replaced with finely cut fried cabbage leaves), farofa, spicy sauce, and a salad of oignon rings and tomato slices.

Ingredients

• Feijoada:
  • 500g of spare ribs
  • 1 pig's trotter (salted if possible)
  • 1 pig's ear (salted if possible)
  • 1 pig's tail (salted if possible)
  • 500g of minced pork
  • 150g of smoked bacon, in dices
  • 150g of Spanish sausage, cut into pieces
  • 150g of dried sausage, cut into pieces
  • 150g of salted meat, in dices
  • 500g of black beans
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • salt to personal taste
  • oil
• Rice:
  • 500g of rice
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 small oignon, chopped
  • salt and white pepper to personal taste
  • oil
• Orange salad:
  • 4 oranges
• Couve à mineira:
  • 10 big cauliflower leaves or turnip cabbage leaves
  • 2 clovees of garlic
  • 50g of lean smoked bacon
• Farofa:
  • 250g of dried cassava flour (can eventually be replaced with semolina or ground breadcrumbs)
  • 3 eggs
  • salt
  • oil
• Spicy sauce:
  • some Spanish peppers (eventully tabasco to personal taste)
  • 1 midsize oignon
  • 1 tablespoon of vinnegar
  • 1 tabllespoon of cacha\ccedil;a (can eventually be replaced with wodka)
  • cooking liquid from the beans (feijoada receipe)
• tomato-oignon salad:
  • 1 oignon, in very thin slices
  • 3 big tomatoes, sliced
  • pepper
  • salt
  • parsley

Proceedings

Feijoada

Put the black beans to soak an evening in advance. prepare the feijoada about 4 hours before you wish to serve the meal. If you have succeeded in finding dried and salted pieces of meat this has to be put to soak and be desalted, by leaving it in water for at least 3 hours, and chagning the water several times.

In the meantime, take a pan, big enough to fit all ingredients. Use it to cook the bean in plenty of water, together with the bayleaves and the diced bacon, until they are almost done.

Meanwhile, fry the cut (non-salted) meat in a bit of oil until it is almost done. Cook the soaked meat in another pan (to avoid that the fried meat becomes too salt) until it is done in about 20 minutes. Rinse it with water and add all the meat to the beans. If necessary, add some hot water until all ingredients are submerged. Leave to simmer on a low flame and skim from time to time.

In the meantime, slightly color the cut garlic cloves in a bit of oil and add to the beans. When everything is done, take 3 big spoons of beans from the pan, mash them with a fork and put them back in the pan, to thicken the cooking liquid.

Keep the beans on temperature on a low flame and stir the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon from time to time to prevent the beans from burning on.

White rice

Make the needed quantity of water boil.

Meanwhile, heat a dash of neutral oil. Fry the chopped oignon and garlic. Add the dry rice, temper the heat and stir from time to time while frying the rice.

Add salt and white pepper.

Raise the temperature and keep stirring (eventually you can add some vinegar or lemon juice te prevent the rice from sticking). Add the boiling water and leave to cook for just a while.

Lower the heat, put the lid on the pan and leave the rice to cook on a low flame for about 15 minutes.

Orange salad

Remove the skin of the oranges, cut them in slices and remove eventual seeds. Put the slices, overlapping like roof-tiles, on a plate and keep in the fridge till the moment of serving.

Couve à mineira

Couve mineiro is a kind of cabbage that is unknown in Belgium. The best replacement is the leaf of cauliflower or eventually turnip cabbage leaves. Cut the leaves in thin (some millimeters) strips. Brazilian cooks do this by putting the leaves, from which the thick veins have been removed, on stacks, rolling them thightly up lengthwise and then cutting these rolls in very thin slices with a sharp knife.

Cut the lean smoked bacon in dices and fry them in a few spoon of neutral oil.

Add the finely chopped garlic and the cabbage strips and leave the whole to fry for about 5 minutes. Stir from time to time with a fork to prevent the cabbage strips from sticking to each other and to allow the cooking fluid to evapoerate.

Serve on a separate dish.

Farofa

Whisk the eggs like for an omelet, with a bit of salt and some spoons of water.

Heat a frying pan with some spoons of neutral oil and let the egg mixture set while stirring.

While continuously stirring, add the cassava flour little by little and leave it to fry for 5 minutes. While friing, crush lumps with a fork. Add some water if the farofa becomes too dry. Serve in a separate dish.

Spicy sauce

Remove the seeds from the peppers and crush them in a bowl. Pour the vinegar and alcohol over it. Add the finely chopped oignon and about 100cc of the cooking liquid from the feijoada.

Leave for at least 30 minutes.

Tomato-oignon salad

Arrange the oignon rings and the tomato slices on a plate. Add salt and pepper to personal taste. Add some chopped parsley and eventually a dash of oil.

Serving

The bean pot can be put on the table as a whole, surrounded by a dish of rice and the separate plates with sides dishes. Sometimes the beans and meat are served separately: the beans in a pot and the different kinds of meat ordered on a separate plate, so that everyone can pick his choice.

With feijoada one drinks ice cold beer or a caipirinha that one makes as follows: for every person: 1 lime, cut into 8 pieces. Jack up in a mortar (or a strong glass) so that the juice comes out. Mix with 1 or 2 table spoon(s) of cane sugar for each lemon. Add about 6cl of Cachaça (eventually wodka) and a handful of crushed ice and stir.