Feijoada - Black Bean Stew - Brazil

The origin of the feijoada runs back to the sixteenth century with the introduction of slaves in Brazil. Slaves were used for many things, cotton production, cocoa production, rubber and with the goldrush boom for extraction of dimonds and mine digging.

The culinary culture of Africa was mixed with the European food traditions. The African slaves had the basic bean stew, the Portuguese added the linguiça (sausage), and the Indians added the farofa (toasted manioc flour). The result was a particularly "heavy" dish wich lasted long and gave the workers the energy they needed, the feijoada!

Today the feijoadas are widely famous in Brazil and most restaurants has a special day they serve this nutritious meal. Also outside of brazil the different feijoadas are receiving word as delicious recipes! And I must admit that I never miss a chance to get me a real traditional national dish of Brazil when I’m out travelling.

The problem can be to find the right ingredients outside of Brazil. This is usually solved by exchanging the missing products with something similar.

Ingredients

1 lb of varied pork sausages (prefer smoked sausages)
1 lb of pork tenderloin some slices of bacon
1 can of black beans (15.5Oz)
2 tbs vegetable oil salt, garlic, chopped onions and bay leaves (bay leaves give a special taste to feijoada)


Directions

Feijoada is made with black beans and pork meats. Add black beans to a medium-sized pot with 2 tbs oil, salt, garlic, chopped onions and about 6 bay leaves. Cook for about 15 minutes in med heat and set aside. In a separated panfry, cook cubes of pork tenderloin and slices of bacon with salt, garlic. Add all the sausages sliced and stir medium-heat until dry all the water. Add the cooked meat to the pan with the black beans and your feijoada is ready! Cook your feijoada more 10 minutes to meat soak in the black beans. You can add some pepper sauce to your feijoada at this point. Hint: to make the feijoada creamy, liquefy 1/2 cup of black beans in the blender and add to the feijoada. SERVE Before serving the "Feijoada", you can serve a caipirinha as an appetizer. Feijoada is a main dish frequently served with white rice, collard greens and seasoned manioc flour (farofa). To follow the "Feijoada", we serve orange segments as a dessert.