A Taste of Brazil with Chef Bia

One of the best things about having gained a reputation among friends as a total foodie is when friends want to teach you their specialty,or their family’s specialty.  Why YES I want you to show me how your Italian Grandma made her famous tomato sauce! And the dumplings your mom used to make.  And the secret to your great aunt’s matzoh ball soup. And how to make traditional Ethiopian with ingredients your mother in law sent from Addis Ababa (okay, that one I already got to make!)  Point is, if you love to make it, I want you to teach me your ways!  So of course I was excited to have Bia teach me how to make her famous Feijoada… while drinking caipirinhas.

My only request?  “Can we please make that amazing  cheesy bread first?”  Pão de queijo?  Of course there will be Pão de queijo.

Seriously, how can you eat just five?

Bia’s feijoada reputation proceeded her, but of course my response to that is always “I’ll believe it when I taste it.” Here’s a little secret: that phrase often results in getting to taste amazing food.  I quickly learned upon entering her home that her secret was a wide variety of smoked meats.  She’d even gone to a specialty store to find the smoked pork ribs.

After posing with the meats, we were all assigned a task dicing, chopping, slicing (or if you were a male human – drinking… but that’s okay, we’d already established that they would be cleaning up after us later).

I was looking at all this thinking, “how the heck are we going to be eating before 2:00am?” but with a little teamwork and a lot of help from Bia’s pressure cooker, we had a Brazilian feast in front of us before we knew it.  (Note – if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you need to prep the night before and get the slow cooker going; if you have the time, I imagine you could also use a large dutch oven).  I’ve had some pretty amazing feijoada before, but I have to say the abundance of all different types of meat – many of them smoked – makes all the difference. Bia’s feijoada is almost a 1:1 ratio of meat and beans, and her farofa is amazingly flavoreful with garlic and bacon – not like the sawdusty versions you may have tried in the past.

And the best part (other than the company, of course!)… she sent us home with a tupperware full of the leftovers, which I ate for both breakfast (topped with fried egg and avocado!) and lunch.  You can teach me to cook anytime, Bia!

Now I’ll hand you over to the chef…

Traditional Brazilian Feijoada

This recipe is brought to you by Chef Bia.  The apron says it all!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of pork ribs (if you find smoked, then go for it! I found them here)
• 1 lb of smoked sausage (it can be kielbasa, chorizo, Portuguese sausage or even the Lit’l smokies)
• ¼ lb of bacon (I bought a chunk of it and chopped it off into small cubes)
• ½ – 1 lb of boneless pork shoulders or pork chops or tenderloin – cut into medium sized cubes
• 1 lb of dried black beans (you can actually use red beans too)
• 2 bay leaves
• Chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cube of chicken or beef bullion
• Lots and lots of garlic

P.S. In Brazil we use ears, feet and nose. Grocery stores usually sell them either dry (salted) or smoked. If you find the dry kind, you will probably have to soak into several water baths to get rid of all the salt. If you find them smoked, then it is feijoada heaven

Prep:

I like it to soak the beans and season the pork tenderloin (or shoulders or chops or ribs if not smoked) over night. For seasoning I do garlic, salt, pepper and some dried herbs (whatever you have).

1. Start by frying the bacon in a medium-high heat. You want the bacon fat to melt so you can sauté the meat in it. If you end up with too much fat, then drain some out of the pan… it is all about flavor but also avoiding a heart attack ! So, as soon as the bacon pieces are crunchy, take them out of the pan (HIDE THEM OR YOU WILL EAT IT ALL WHILE COOKING THE REST OF THE FOOD…. TRUST ME IT WILL HAPPEN!)
2.  Sear the meat cubes until they have some color. Then add the sausage and other smoked pieces.
3. Add the beans and then chicken stock and chicken/beef bouillon.
   

   IMPORTANT: when using a pressure cooker, you have to add enough water (or stock) to cover all the ingredients plus 1.5 – 2 inches.  If you want to do this on a crock pot, then just do all the meat frying on a regular pan and then transfer it to a crockpot. I recommend you deglaze the pan as you want all that flavor goodness in the crockpot. For the crockpot, you can let it cook overnight, if using pressure cooker, then it should take about 30 mins to cook the beans.

   

4. When beans are tender, then get a different pan, sauté some (LOTS) of garlic in olive oil until golden, at this point you can add some chopped yellow onions and then add the feijoada contents. Check for salt adjustments. You can also top it with parsley and green onions.

Garnishes:

• White rice (I’m sure you know how to do that. One thing I do differently is that I add garlic and salt to the rice so it is very flavored)
• Farofa (see below)
• Collard Greens

Farofa

Ingredients:

• Yucca flower (also cassova or tapioca)
• 2-3 Eggs
• 4-5 Bacon strips, chopped into small pieces
• 1-2 shredded carrots
• LOTS of garlic [minced]
• ½ medium yellow onion – chopped into small pieces
• Green or black olives (optional) – chopped into small pieces
• Nutmeg

  

Prep:

1. Again, here you want all that bacon fat goodness, so same first step as for the fejoada [fry the bacon]. When bacon is crunchy, then add garlic until golden, the onions, let onions cook a little.
2. Add eggs and some black or red pepper. When let eggs cook and scramble them. Add carrots, olives and nutmeg (I LOVE nutmeg so I add a lot). Slowly add the flour and stir to incorporate all ingredients. Add salt, to taste.

Collard Greens

• 2 large bunches collard greens
• Olive oil
• Lots of garlic
• Salt, to taste

1. Wash collard greens and let them dry a little.  I like to remove the middle stem. Fold both sides and rip them into smaller pieces… almost like what we used to do when ripping a piece of our diary (don’t pretend you don’t know what I am talking about! LOL). 
2. At this point I like to chop them smaller with a knife. This is tedious but the smaller the pieces the easier it is to stir and cook them. (Given the alcohol content in everyone’s body that night, this obviously did not happen)
3. In a skillet add olive oil and guess… yeah, you are right… LOTS of garlic. Sauté it until golden and then add the collard greens. Stir it until the soften (but still maintain a crunch).  Add salt and pepper to your taste.

Enjoy your Brazilian Feast!!!

Johanna