Feijoada: Brazilian Party-in-a-Pot

Feijoada (fay-ZHOO-ah-dah) is the national dish of Brazil – a country whose people are known far and wide as fun-loving and free-wheeling. Feijoada is delicious and nutritious and, when done right, it can take some time to prepare. It is associated with good times and having friends come over for lunch and go home at midnight, so for those two reasons, it’s almost always eaten on Saturdays.

[Side note: I lived off-and-on in São Paulo for a little over 2 years and I discovered that Paulistas eat feijoada on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I never got a good explanation for that oddity. Since most other Brazilians don’t understand Paulistas anyway, I’ll leave that one open for you all to share your theories about that one.]

So here is my attempt to share my short-cut ways to make a feijoada as quickly and easily as possible, while retaining the flavor (and having enough energy myself to join the party). Even this way, it’s a fair bit of work so plan on dedicating your Saturday morning to cooking and the rest of the day & evening to enjoying yourself.

Feijoada as a meal has 5 main components:
1. Feijoada - the bean and meat stew itself,
2. Rice
3. Couve (KOE-vee)
4. Farofa (FAH-raw-fah)
5. Fruit

1. Feijoada – work on this first so it slow-cooks while you work on the other dishes.

Ingredients:
1 big pot.
2 bags of dried black beans
1 smoked ham hock (it must be smoked or don’t bother)
1 ring of low-fat turkey sausage or low-fat polska kielbasa - Hillshire Farms or equivalent.
1.5 pounds of well-marbled beef (chuck steak is fine)
1 packet of frozen chopped onions (I LOVE this – no tears)
5 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves – minced or pressed
½ bunch of parsley – finely chopped

** The day before the feijoada (Friday night), hand-sort the beans to be sure there are no rocks or twigs in the bag. Then rinse them in a colander. Soak them overnight in 6 quarts of water. Make sure your pot can hold at least 8 quarts and if not, you might cut this recipe in half and simply have a smaller meal/party, but that would be sad so borrow a pot and do it right. And remember to invite the person who lent you the pot.

Start by slowly heating the pot to a slow boil. Put the bay leaves, the ham hock and chopped parsley into pot. While the big pot heats, cut the beef into small bite-sized pieces and remove all big pieces of fat. Brown the beef in a skillet and remove any liquid from the pan with a turkey baster so the meat gets a nice browning on all sides. Use cooking spray so it does not add any grease. Put the meat into the pot and add water so it covers everything.

In the same skillet, sauté the onions slowly until they are transparent. While the onions are doing their thing, slice the sausage into ¼ inch medallions, and then cut each piece again into fourths. Put the sausage pieces into the skillet and let them hear up with the onions. Then put the whole mixture into the pot.

Cover the pot and let it simmer slowly over several hours while you work on the other dishes. After a few hours, slowly take the ham hock out of the pot so that it does not fall apart in the pot. Put the ham hock to the side and when it cools down you can discard it.

2. Rice – use any kind of rice you like, but authentic Feijoada is eaten with long-grain white rice.

Ingredients:2 cups long-grain white rice
½ bag of frozen onions (save the other half for the couve)
1 Tbsp Olive oil
Salt to taste

I usually take the rice and rinse it with a strainer. Then I take the frozen onions and sauté it with a little olive oil them until transparent in a small pot. When the onions are ready, I put the rinsed rice grains into the pot and mix them around for a minute or two with the onion and oil so the flavors infuse the grains. When the sizzling sound dies down, add a few pinches of salt to taste and 4 cups of water, then bring it all to a boil.

When it reaches a boil, cover and reduce the heat until it stays at a gentle boil. Leave it covered about 15 minutes or so until the water is gone. Stir it with a fork so the onions get well mixed into the rice, cover it again and leave it alone until it’s time to serve.

3. Couve – That’s the Portuguese word for collard greens (KOE-vee), but it’s more fun to say than “collards” isn’t it?

Ladies who walk around saying “couve” can be mistaken for Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and guys can be mistaken for WorldCup Soccer Star KaKá, so why not add it to your vocabulary?

Ingredients:1 8-oz bag of frozen collard greens
1 ½ bag of frozen chopped onions
1 Tbsp olive oil
½ bunch of fresh parsley
There is a way to prepare couve from fresh collard greens so they do not become bitter, and my mom has told me several times how to do it and I can never remember, so do what I do – use frozen collard greens! The frozen collards have never gone bitter on me, so it works.

Sauté the onions with the olive oil in a skillet slowly until transparent. At that point, add the parsley and stir. Then add the frozen collards and stir while they thaw and cook. Don’t worry if the collards are already thawed – let it cook either way. Cooking time after the collards hit the pan is probably only 5 minutes. Once cooked, turn off the flame and you can leave it in the pan covered until it’s time to serve it all.

If you need the pan, just put the couve into a serving dish – it will keep fine while you work on the farofa. Remember to go back and stir the feijoada pot gently from the bottom occasionally so the bottom doesn’t burn and be careful not to break apart the ham hock.

4. Farofa – this is a quintessentially Brazilian garnish that is often prepared and served with other dishes. It’s awesome even on its own.

Ingredients:16 oz bag of manioc flour
1 bag of frozen chopped onions
¼ cup of olive oil
2 large eggs
½ cup of peanuts (can be substituted – see below)
Farofa begins with farinha de mandioca (manioc flour), which might be hard to find outside of NJ, MA or FL, but it’s worth searching for. Ask around where you can buy Brazilian food products and you’ll find mandioca.

Take a bag of frozen chopped onions and sauté over a medium flame in a deep skillet with the olive oil until transparent. Next, crack the eggs into a measuring cup and whip it with a fork, then set the egg mixture aside until you need it in a few moments.

Add the manioc flour to the onion-oil mixture little-by-little and stir with a spatula as it all gets integrated. Stir over the medium flame while breaking up clumps and letting the whole mixture take on a “toasted” consistency.

Clear away the center of the skillet and slowly pour the egg little by little into the clearing and immediately add the flour-onion mixture into the egg. The egg should end up like thin wisps in the mixture like the egg in egg-drop soup. Repeat the process until the whole egg is gone. Keep the flame on medium and keep stirring.

The last part is to let the whole mixture get very hot (but be careful not to burn it) and then add the peanuts. Stir as needed, then transfer to a serving bowl and serve it fresh and hot.

Farofa is as individual as the maker, so peanuts are a particular favorite of Lauren’s and it was a natural for me to make it this way. Some people put chopped green olives in the farofa, and others use raisins, bacon, thin-sliced carrots, a combination – whatever strikes your fancy. Whatever you use should not be large chunks or dominate the farofa in any way, but instead it should add a subtle layer of flavor.

Again, remember to go back and stir the feijoada pot occasionally so the bottom doesn’t burn.

5. Fruit

Serve the whole meal with orange slices or banana. Some people claim the oranges “cut the grease” or “minimize the gas” from the beans. I am not sure either one is the case, but it’s a common way to eat feijoada. It also adds an interesting taste to the overall dish. The fruit is a garnish.

How to serve and eat feijoada:

Even though feijoada is also served in fine restaurants on Saturdays, it is essentially a family-and-friends dish, so serve it up family-style. Take the pots directly to the table and ladle out directly onto your dish.

It’s okay to separate the couve, farofa and fruit, but the feijoada should be served on a bed of rice and not side-by-side with the rice. Even Paulistas know enough to eat it that way.
[Note to my Paulista friends: You know that even the son of a Carioca can't resist a jab or two every once in a while. Alas, my heart has always belonged to Rio...]
Remember that feijoada is not a mere meal, so you have to invite several friends over to enjoy it with you. You will also need lots of music and cold drinks. Choose your favorite beverage, or try caipirinhas – the national drink of Brazil and the first post on this blog. Whatever it is, serve it cold and make sure you don’t run out.

As you might imagine, feijoada is a complex, savory dish with many textures that can be quite heavy. The main issue is that it’s so delicious that almost everyone overdoes it, which is how it turns into a day-long event. Inevitably, everyone moves to the room that has the comfy couches, but the music and laughter continues and the cold drinks keep getting poured and before you know, it’s already midnight.
Don’t resist having seconds and letting it all morph into an event - hosting a feijoada at your house is quite wonderful. Share your feijoada stories with a comment or two below.
Enjoy!

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Favorite Food Spotlight - La Lechera

I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite finds when I run across something really delicious or innovative. Today I'd like to spotlight a product I stumbled upon at my favorite Hispanic grocery store - it's Nestle's brand of sweetened condensed milk called "La Lechera" in a squeeze bottle (yes - a squeeze bottle).


It's the same as any other brand, but what's innovative is the packaging. Gone are the days when you only need a small amount of sweetened condensed milk and you have to open a whole can and then not know what to do with the leftover because the can is not resealable. This squeeze bottle makes it dangerously easy to enjoy sweetened condensed milk in small increments - try it some time in place of jelly in a PB&J and you'll understand the potential danger here.


At this point in time, I am not sure if La Lechera the squeezable is available in mainstream grocery stores, but I know for sure it's available at Compare Foods on Roxboro Rd. in Durham, NC and at International Grocery on New Hope Church Rd. in Raleigh, NC. Go ahead and be adventurous and check out your local bodega - you might be pleasantly surprised at what good service you get. If you do take the plunge, ask for "leche condensada" and see what they show you.

Be aware that "La Lechera" means "Milk Maid" in Spanish, so if you ask for la lechera without giving context, you might be misunderstood. Unless you intend the double entendre, in which case you might be in for another kind of surprise...

Whitney's Tomatillo Salsa

We have these awesome friends that live two doors down from us - Johnny and Whitney and their baby, Tyler. We frequently go to one another's house and share whatever happens to be cooking, usually at the spur of the moment. It usually involves a beverage or two, lots of laughing and taking turns playing Guitar Hero on the Wii.

Anyway, last weekend, they called us over to crack open their newly-acquired bottle of Herradura Tequila for some frozen margaritas. Since it's about 1000° here in North Carolina this summer, the prospect of very cold drinks made with excellent tequila meant that it took me all of a nanosecond to gather up the kids and head over there.

So the margaritas were divine, of course, but what was equally yummy was this humble little bowl of green tomatillo salsa. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am in the middle of a tomatillo kick anyway, but this was REALLY good. And since Whitney is a working mom, she's pretty much already mastered the art of the quick-and-easy-but-still-tasty meal, so I asked her to share her recipe. So here it is for all to enjoy:

1 lb. tomatillos - remove the papery outer layer
1 white onion - quartered
4 garlic cloves
2 jalapeño peppers (remove the seeds)
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of cumin
1/2 lime - juiced

Roast the first 4 ingredients in the oven at 400° for 15 minutes. When roasted, put all of the ingredients together in a food processor until mixed together. Pour into a bowl and serve with your favorite tortilla chips.

A word about Tomatillos:
They're funny-looking cousins of the tomato that we all know and love, and these have a green and have a papery outer layer. When you cook with them, just make sure to remove the papery outer layer. Our local Harris-Teeter carries them sometimes, and almost all of our local hispanic bodegas or grocery stores always have them.

My all-time favorite hispanic grocery is Compare Foods in Durham (it's part of a small chain, so look them up on the Web). The Durham store is big, clean and well-stocked with wide aisles. I can spend hours there browsing the various foods from all around Latin America and the Caribbean - literally dozens of types of chiles, tomatillos (of course), bottled sodas made with cane sugar (not corn syrup) and even a chipotle mayonnaise that McCormick's makes in Mexico. Compare is on Roxboro Road just north of I-85, set back from the street on the right side heading north. Once you spot it, you'll be surprised how big it is.

Try this Tomatillo Salsa recipe and I'll share your comments with Whitney. Enjoy!

Lauren's Creamy Pesto

Here is a wonderful recipe for folks who like the taste of pesto, but don't like the all the oil in it. My dear wife, Lauren, is one such person, so she set about making her own version of pesto that's less oily. It turned out that her pesto is creamier in texture and taste, and is therefore more versatile. It has now become a perennial favorite. We've had skeptics at our table - both young and old go gaga over this recipe, so I think it's worth sharing.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of fresh basil leaves gently compacted (about 40 - 50 leaves). Here's where you cannot substitute - please do not bother with dried basil. It has to be fresh leaves.
• 1/2 cup of pine nuts (yes - you can use walnuts in a pinch)
• 8 - 10 oz. parmesan cheese in a wedge (can use romano as a subsitute or half-half romano & parmesan)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1 cup of milk (we use 2% - just use whatever you have in the fridge)

Blend in a food processor, beginning by grating the chesse. Then add the basil leaves and olive oil, and follow with the garlic and pine nuts. Don't panic if you mix the order up, it will probably taste fine no matter what order you use, but that order works for us. No matter what order you use for the first ingredients, always end with the milk.
Add the milk directly to the food processor little by little and taste along the way. Do not add all of it if you've gotten to the desired consistency with less milk than a whole cup. Feel free to add more basil or cheese if that strikes your fancy. We've found that more than 2 cloves of garlic overpowers the other flavors and if we add more of anything, it's usually the basil leaves.
We usually serve this pesto as a sauce to go over grilled chicken breasts. It can also be used to make pesto pasta. pesto risotto and simply spread over crackers.

Useful tips:

• For storage, use saran wrap to press onto the surface of the pesto inside the tupperware. Like guacamole, this pesto will turn brown with long-term contact with air (even on the inside of a tupperware). Smothered with saran wrap, it can keep for a week in your fridge.
• Most pesto recipes provide for being made with either pine nuts or walnuts. Once we even made this with marcona almonds from Costco and it came out okay.

Let me know what you think!