Feijoada!

I have received enough requests for the Feijoada recipe we make that I have decided to create a post about it so that I have a recipe to which I can refer people. It was passed down to us from Danny and Marie, our brother and sister-in-law living in Utah, and it can be lovingly altered to taste how you like it.

Feijoada ("fay-zhwa-da") is considered to be the national dish of Brazil, and is a stewy black bean dish dominated by a meaty flavor, which is fragrant and moderately salty, but not spicy. In most Brazilian feijoada, odds and ends of beef and pork (including ears, and feet and such) are thrown into the pot, but as you will see, our version is much more tame. We usually eat feijoada over rice, with a side of farofa (a coarse, roasted cassava root flour), and vinaigrete, which is diced cucumbers, onion and tomato marinated in a yummy vinaigrette. Here she is.

Feijoada

1 bag of dry black beans (16 oz.)

One medium sized onion, diced

4 medium-sized cloves of garlic, minced

1 package of pre-cooked, diced ham (can also use home-baked versions, but stores sell vacuum-packed diced ham in the meat section if you are going for convenience)

1 sausage (again, in the meat section at the store, in the shape of a horseshoe)

1 tablespoon salt

2 bay leaves


Soak the black beans overnight in a large pot, leaving enough water for the beans to expand a bit as they hydrate. In the morning, rinse the beans and pull out the riffraff, and put the beans back into a crockpot on high heat. Add the diced ham, the salt, bay leaves, onion and garlic. Stir and cover with water, to about 1/2 of an inch above the top of the beans mixture. Leave the crockpot on high for six or seven hours (depending on how hot your crockpot gets), and add the sausage a few hours before you are ready to eat. Check the beans an hour or so before you plan to eat and make sure they are nearly done, and that there is enough water, but not too much. Before adding more water if need be, stir up the beans first, as the top can look more dried out than the rest. Some people mash some of the beans to make the stew broth a little thicker. Eat over rice with a side of salad or fruit and voila! Enjoy!