While dining at Gloria’s Portuguese restaurant recently, Pete and I tried a wonderful traditional dish known as feijoada. It was a rich smoky combination of fresh and salted meats, slow-cooked with beans.
I was keen to try making it at home, but most of the recipes I found online were for Brazilian feijoada, which is apparently quite different to the Portuguese version. In the end I settled on this recipe and adapted it to the ingredients I could find locally. It was a roaring success, with the boys asking me to make it again as they were eating it!
- 1 cup black beans, soaked overnight
- 1 can beans, drained and rinsed (kidney beans would be good, I used butter beans)
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 crushed cloves garlic
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 3 onions, finely chopped
- handful fresh parsley, chopped
- 3 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 chorizo, sliced
- 1 rack smoked ribs, cut into riblets
- 2 pork hocks, rind removed
- vegetable oil
- 1 cup tomato passata
- salt and pepper (optional)
Note: the original recipe quite charmingly advises to use “Assorted meat of personal choice (universally it is pork knee, pork sausage and salted dry beef)” . I think some smoked or cured meat is required to give the dish its unique flavour.
Also, I only added canned beans because I felt halfway through that the dish needed more beans. When I make this again, I’ll double the quantity of dried black beans and omit the tinned.
1. Drain the black beans and put them into a large stock pot. Add the meat, bay leaves and parsley. Add enough water to generously cover the meat, then put the lid on and bring the pot to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer very gently for a couple of hours.
2. In a separate pan, heat the oil and fry the onion, garlic, carrots and fresh tomato until soft. Ladle some liquid and softened black beans from the stockpot into the fry pan and mash the vegetables and beans together. Pour this all back into the stock pot, along with the drained canned beans (optional) and tomato passata. Continue cooking for at least an hour longer, or until the pork is tender and falling off the bone. Taste and adjust for seasoning (I didn’t have to add anything).
3. Accompany this with steamed rice, napping the meat with extra sauce before serving.
This is the first time I’ve tried to make feijoada, and I’m certainly not holding this recipe up as authoritative. It’s really more a record of our attempt. If you have any tips on how we can improve our version or make it more authentic, please let me know!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 