Feijoada
Feijoada is the black bean and pork stew eaten across Brazil, most often on Wednesdays and Saturdays and almost always as the only dish of the meal. Salt-cured and smoked pork cook slowly with black beans until the beans give up enough starch to turn the liquid into a dark, thick broth. The set of meats matters more than any seasoning: carne seca for salt and depth, smoked ribs for smoke, paio and calabresa for spice and fat. Origin stories tying it to slave quarters and discarded offcuts are widespread but historically contested, since bean and pork stews were already common in Portugal. Bean soaking and desalting the cured meat happen the day before.
Ingredients
- 500 gblack beans
- 300 gcarne seca
- 200 gsmoked pork ribs
- 150 gpaio sausage
- 150 glinguiça calabresa
- 150 gpork belly
- 1 pieceonion
- 4 clovesgarlic
- 3 piecesbay leaves
- 2 tbspvegetable oil
- 2 piecesoranges
- 1 tspfine sea salt
Method
- The day before, soak the black beans in plenty of cold water for 8 to 12 hours, and separately soak the carne seca in the fridge for 24 hours, changing the water three or four times. Without that, the finished pot is inedibly salty and no amount of dilution fixes it.
- Cut the desalted carne seca and the pork belly into 4 cm pieces and blanch them with the ribs in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain and discard that water. This takes out surface salt and a good part of the rendered fat that would otherwise sit on top of the stew.
- Drain the beans, put them in a large heavy pot with the bay leaves and cold water about 4 cm above the surface, bring to a boil and then drop to the barest simmer for 1 hour, skimming the foam in the first 10 minutes.
- Add the carne seca, ribs and pork belly and simmer another hour, topping up with hot water only if the beans become exposed. The pot should never boil hard, which breaks the beans and clouds the broth.
- Add the paio and calabresa whole and cook 30 minutes more, by which time the beans should crush easily against the side of the pot and the meat should pull away from the rib bones.
- Make the refogado: fry the chopped onion and garlic in the oil until golden, then ladle in a cupful of beans and mash them into the pan before returning everything to the pot. That mashed portion is what thickens the broth, so nothing else is needed to bind it.
- Simmer uncovered 30 minutes, salt only now, and let the pot rest 30 minutes off the heat. Slice the sausages and meats, return them to the pot, and serve with orange segments on the side.
FAQ
Only partly, and prevention is the real answer: the carne seca needs a full 24 hours of soaking with several water changes, plus the 10 minute blanch. If it is already salty, add unsalted cooked beans and a couple of peeled potatoes to simmer for 20 minutes and absorb some of it, then remove the potatoes.
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