My husband had an incredible childhood. His father was an international businessman, and in the 60’s he moved the family to Brazil, where my husband attended middle school and all but one year of high school. He embraced the Brazilian culture, becoming fluent in Portuguese, rising the status of connoisseur of caipirinhas (a Brazilian drink made with limes, sugar and cachaça, a fermented sugar cane alcohol) and loving the national Brazilian dish, feijoada.
You might not be familiar with feijoada. It is the national dish of Brazil and in Portuguese is pronounced fey-ju-wa-da. Feijoada is a black bean stew made with a variety of meats. I was told that feijoada was developed by the African slaves that were brought over to Brazil to work on the sugar cane plantations. Beans were the staple of the slaves’ diet, but when the plantation owners would host a party, the slaves were given the leftover scraps of meat, which they incorporated into the beans to make a stew.
If you look for a feijoada recipe online, each one would list different meats to use for the stew, but the meats are generally a mix of pork and sausages, both fresh and smoked. I can guarantee that each would be unbelievably delicious. So, if I can’t find the exact meats I’m looking for, I have no qualms about using substitutions.
Important point: I never make feijoada for just us. I only make it as an accompaniment to a taco bar when I have a ton of people coming over to eat. Every time I serve it, everyone always raves about it, and they all have multiple servings, yet I still end up giving out a few feijoada doggie bags and freezing a bunch for future comfort meals.
Here is my go-to feijoada recipe:
Ingredients
2 lb dry black beans
4 tbsp olive oil
1 lb fatty pork meat, cut into bite size pieces (I used pork stew meat, but pork shoulder works well)
2 lg onions, sliced
Head of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 lb fresh chorizo sausage
1 lb smoked sausage, cut into bite size pieces (linguica or kielbasa)
2 smoked ham hocks
4 slices bacon, cut up
4 bay leaves
water
14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
Salt to taste
Instructions
Pour the beans in a colander and rinse with water. Pour the beans in a large bowl and cover 2-3 inches of water. Soak the beans overnight.
Put the oil in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium heat. Add the fresh pork and brown thoroughly. Remove the meat and set aside.
Add the onions to the pot and brown them, stirring occasionally and scrapping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pot, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic to the browned onions and sauté for 2 more minutes.
Put the browned pork back in the pot along with all the other meats, sausages and bay leaves. Cover everything with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours.
Remove the sausage links and allow them to cool. Cut the sausages into bite size pieces. Add the bite size sausages back into the pot.
Pour the soaked beans into a colander and rinse. Add the rinsed beans to the pat, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for another 2 hours.
Remove the ham hocks from the pot and allow them to cool. Take the meat off the ham hocks and put it back into the pot.
Add the crushed tomatoes to the pot and simmer for another hour. Season with salt and pepper to taste, if needed. I might add some fresh cracked pepper, but the salt level is usually good for me. Feijoada is traditionally served over rice, making for an incredibly hardy meal. It is also traditional to offer Farofa as a condiment to your guests that they can sprinkle on top of the Feijoada. Farofa is cassava flour and corn flour mix that has been roasted with butter, salt, onions, garlic and perhaps some meat (bacon, sausage, etc.). It has a grainy texture, and a nutty, smoky, toasty flavor that is the perfect finishing touch to the feijoada.
