Feijoada
Brazil’s Saturday feast: black beans simmered for hours with smoked pork and sausage, served with rice, collard greens, farofa and orange.
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 3 h
- total
- 3 h 30 min
- serves
- 8
- level
- medium
Feijoada is not a recipe so much as an event: black beans and an assortment of smoked and fresh pork simmered most of a morning, then surrounded at the table by rice, garlicky collard greens, toasted farofa and orange slices.
The orange is not garnish. Halves go into the pot while it cooks, old Brazilian wisdom for cutting the richness, and fresh slices come to the table for the same reason.
Feijoada is one of the world's classic dishes from 67 countries.
method
Brown the bacon in a large pot, then the sausage, ribs and shoulder in its fat. Set the meats aside.
Soften the onion in the same pot, add the garlic, then the drained beans, bay leaves and all the meats.
Cover with water by three fingers, drop in the orange halves, and simmer, partly covered, for 2.5 to 3 hours, until the beans are creamy and the meats tender. Top up with hot water as needed.
Fish out the orange halves and bay. Mash a ladleful of beans against the pot and stir back to thicken.
Season, rest 15 minutes, and serve with rice, sautéed collard greens, farofa and fresh orange.
chef's tips
- The orange halves in the pot are the old trick; they mellow the fat without announcing themselves.
- Farofa, toasted cassava flour, is the crunch the dish is built around. Brazilian grocers and the internet both carry it.
- Feijoada is Saturday lunch for a reason: plan nothing ambitious afterwards.