Meat · Recipe · Brazil · Reference page
Feijoada
feijoada
Black beans simmered for two hours with smoked beef ribs, chouriço, bacon, smoked pork loin and dried beef, finished with onion and garlic, and served with farofa (toasted cassava flour fried in butter with bacon) and slices of orange. The recipe is Edna Barzel's, from SBS Food Safari.
- Servings
- 4
- Preparation
- 30 min
- Cooking
- 2 h 30
- Resting
- 3 h
- Total
- 6 h
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Equipment
- Large heavy pot with a lid (or pressure cooker)
- Frying pan for the onion and the farofa
- Wooden spoon
Ingredients
Feijoada
Farofa
Method
Soak the diced carne seca in cold water for a few hours, then drain.
Why Dried beef is heavily salted; soaking draws out the salt.
Timer · 3 h180:00Put the beans, all the meats, the chillies, bay leaves and half the garlic in the pot, season with salt and add water just to cover. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about 2 hours, until the beans are soft.
Why If you need to add water during cooking, add it boiling (SBS notes on Brazilian cooking).
Timer · 2 h120:00Fry the onion and the rest of the garlic in olive oil until soft, stir into the feijoada and cook for 15 minutes more.
Timer · 15 min15:00For a creamier feijoada, blend about half a cup of the cooked beans and stir them back in.
Make the farofa: melt the butter in a large frying pan, cook the onion and bacon until the onion is soft, then add the cassava flour a little at a time until it is all absorbed. Season with salt and pepper and scatter with parsley and spring onion.
Timer · 10 min10:00Serve the feijoada with orange or pineapple slices and the farofa on the side.
To drink & serve with
The source serves it with orange or pineapple and farofa.
Substitutions
- Carne seca → More smoked beef or salted brisket, desalted the same way.
- Chouriço → Another smoked pork sausage such as Brazilian linguiça.
- Long simmer → A pressure cooker, as the source allows; follow the cooker's time for black beans.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the soak for the carne seca: the stew comes out far too salty.
- Adding cold water during cooking.
- Adding acidic ingredients early: tomato, vinegar or citrus keep beans hard (SBS).
Storage & reheating
Better the next day. Cool quickly, refrigerate within 2 hours and eat within 2 days; reheat once, bringing it back to the boil.
Safety
Contains milk (butter in the farofa). Cured sausages and smoked meats may contain sulphites and other additives: check labels. Pork must be cooked right through and leftovers reheated until boiling.
Allergens
Milk
Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.
National dish, contested story
SBS calls feijoada the national dish of Brazil: black beans cooked with several cuts of smoked and cured beef and pork, served with farofa, toasted cassava flour fried in butter. A popular legend says enslaved people created it in the colonial period from the parts of the animal their masters threw away. Historians, another SBS recipe page says, call this a myth: Portugal has a strong tradition of meat-and-bean stews, and feijoada may be one of them brought to Brazil. Every family, it adds, has its own version.
No metal in the pot
Edna Barzel's Food Safari recipe passes on a kitchen superstition: when the feijoada is nearly ready, do not touch it with a metal fork or spoon, which is said to spoil the flavour and turn the dish sour. SBS's notes on Brazilian cooking add two practical rules: add only boiling water to the pot, and keep acidic ingredients for the end, because acid keeps beans hard.
How it connects
Place
- origin Brazil In preparation
Wine region
- related Brazil
