Feijoada

Feijoada is a dish I've learned of only recently through a long time online pal of mine from Brazil, Bira Dantas. I finally met Bira in person early in October during a comics festival in Algeria. Like many cartoonists I met at the festival, Bira was extremely proud of his culture and he wasted no time sharing all the great things he loved about Brazil. Food was of course, one of those things.

He invited me to visit him in Brazil and if ever I found myself there, he would cook Feijoada for me. He described it to me and the bean and meat lover in me immediately stood at attention. I love beans and I love meat, although they really don't love me back. These things are full of uric acid you see, and uric acid is something I'm trying avoid. It's the cause of gout and other arthritis-related ailments. And I've had a problem with gout for quite a while.

Nevertheless I wanted to try this out. Feijoada is composed mostly of beans and assortment of meats from bacon, to smoked ham, to sausages, etc. So yeah, in this house this is alternately called "Uric Acid Surprise".

I don't have access to a few authentic ingredients so I decided to just replace them with what's available here in the Philippines. These is is the set of ingredients I decided upon:

150 grams black beans
1/4 kilo bacon
300 grams kielbasa sausage
5 pieces San Pablo longganisa
1/4 kilo smoked ham
1 piece chopped T-bone
1 big white onion chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
chopped parsley for garnishing

I had difficulty finding black beans locally. What's available mostly are red kidney beans and pinto beans. I've had to go to Healthy Options to find a bag of black beans which were organic (which is I suppose, a good thing) and kind of expensive (oh well). Of course I could have just as easily replaced the black beans with some other kind of bean, but if I can get black beans then I would rather go with that since that is what is specified traditionally.

To add a Filipino touch, I used locally available sausages like the native longganisa. I also had a frozen T-bone steak lying around so I thought I'd just throw that in.

OK, here's how I did it (with some tips from Chef John of Food Wishes):

I first submerged the black beans in water overnight. The following day, I drained the beans, placed them on a deep pot with 4 cups of water. I chopped up the T-bone and threw that in (including the bones) and boiled it for 2 hours. I brought the pot to a boil in high heat then brought down the heat to low as soon as it started boiling. In the first few minutes of boiling, scum rose to the top so I removed all of that.

Around 15 minutes before the 2 hours are up, I chopped the garlic and onion. I sauteed that in some oil (you can fry up some bacon and sautee the garlic and onion in that if you like). I chopped the meat into bite size pieces. I cooked the longganiza in oil until it was browned and chopped that. If you are using uncooked meat at this point, you better cook it first before throwing it in.

At the 2 hour mark, I placed the sauteed onion and garlic into the pot of boiling water and beans, threw in all the meat, added one and a half cups of water. I turned the heat to high once again, and once it starts boiling, I brought the heat back to low. I continued simmering for another hour, with occasional stirring.

Before the hour is up, I mashed up some of the beans in the pot with a potato masher. This will help make the liquid a bit thicker.

I served my Feijoada topped with chopped parsley with rice. (Traditionally topped with orange peels so you can go with that if you like.)