Rice · Recipe · Brazil · Reference page
Arroz e feijão
arroz e feijão / arroz com feijão
Brazil's daily plate: loose white rice cooked with onion and bay, served with carioca beans simmered in a pressure cooker and thickened with a garlic and onion refogado. Both recipes are from Panelinha, Rita Lobo's recipe site; the food-science context is from Embrapa, Brazil's agricultural research agency.
- Servings
- 6
- Preparation
- 15 min
- Cooking
- 45 min
- Resting
- 12 h
- Total
- 13 h
- Difficulty
- Easy
Equipment
- Bowl for soaking; sieve
- Pressure cooker
- Frying pan; medium saucepan with a lid; kettle
Ingredients
Beans (feijão caseiro)
Rice (arroz branco soltinho)
Method
The day before: rinse the beans in a sieve, cover with the soaking water in a bowl (discard any that float), cover and leave for 12 hours, changing the water once.
Why Panelinha says soaking shortens the cooking and removes substances that make beans hard to digest.
Timer · 12 h720:00Drain the beans and discard the soaking water. Put them in the pressure cooker with the cooking water and bay leaves, close and set over high heat. When it starts to whistle, lower the heat and cook 10 minutes more. Turn off and let all the steam out before opening.
Why Never force a pressure cooker open while it is still under pressure.
Timer · 10 min10:00Meanwhile soften the bean onion in the olive oil with a pinch of salt over low heat, about 3 minutes; add the garlic and stir 1 minute.
Timer · 4 min4:00Add 2 ladles of cooked beans with a little broth to the frying pan and mash them with the spatula. Tip this back into the bean pot, season with salt and pepper and simmer uncovered on low heat for 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the broth thickens.
Why The mashed beans thicken the broth; simmer longer for a creamier feijão, less for a thinner one.
Timer · 10 min10:00For the rice, boil a little more than the rice water in a kettle. Soften the rice onion in the oil over low heat for about 2 minutes, add a pinch of salt and the bay leaf, then the rice, and stir 1 minute to coat the grains.
Why Coating the grains in oil helps keep them separate (soltinho).
Pour on the measured boiling water, add the salt, stir once and raise the heat to medium. Do not stir again. When the water drops to the level of the rice (about 7 minutes), lower the heat and half-cover. Cook until all the water is absorbed (about 8 minutes).
Timer · 15 min15:00Turn off the heat and keep covered for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork. Serve the rice with the beans spooned over or beside it.
Timer · 5 min5:00
To drink & serve with
Panelinha suggests a squeeze of lime over the beans. In Brazil the main plate is usually rice, beans, meat and salad, according to Embrapa.
Substitutions
- Carioca beans → Rosinha beans, as the source allows, or black beans (feijão preto) as in Rio de Janeiro (editorial).
- Olive oil → Vegetable oil, which Embrapa recommends with garlic and onion rather than bacon or sausage.
Common mistakes
- Cooking the beans in the soaking water: Embrapa and Panelinha both say to discard it.
- Stirring the rice after the water goes in: it turns sticky.
- Opening the pressure cooker before the steam is out.
Storage & reheating
Beans keep 2 days in the fridge or 3 months frozen. Rice: cool within an hour and keep no more than a day in the fridge (UK FSA); reheat once until steaming hot.
Safety
No common allergens. Dried beans must be soaked and boiled fully before eating. Follow the pressure cooker maker's instructions and release all the steam before opening.
Allergens
None
Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.
Dietary
vegan · gluten-free · dairy-free
The perfect pair
Embrapa Arroz e Feijão, the Brazilian agricultural research agency's rice and bean centre, calls rice with beans "the perfect pair". Its 2011 book says that rice and beans, with cassava flour, are the basic food of Brazilians in every region and social class, and that the main meal is usually beans, rice, meat and salad. The habit of two meals of rice and beans a day is "especially appropriate", it says, because cereals and pulses supply each other's missing essential amino acids.
Soak, pressure-cook, refogar
Panelinha's feijão caseiro is soaked for 12 hours with one change of water, cooked in a pressure cooker for only 10 minutes after it starts to whistle, then finished with a refogado: onion and garlic softened in olive oil, into which two ladles of beans are mashed and returned to the pot to thicken the broth.
The rice is cooked the Brazilian way that Embrapa also describes: onion softened in oil, the rice stirred in, then measured water, here already boiling, at two volumes to one. It cooks without stirring, half-covered once the water drops to the level of the rice, and rests 5 minutes off the heat.
How it connects
Place
- origin Brazil In preparation
Recipe
- related Mujaddara (rice and lentils)
