Brazilian Feijoada Bean Stew

If you’ve been here yesterday, you’d know that I’m participating in a month-long blogging activity called Around the World in 30 Days, where this bunch of bloggers is going to post a recipe each day of the month from a country of their choice. The series is also going alphabetically. So, I posted an Armenian Nutmeg Cake yesterday and have a bean stew from Brazil today.

Let me let you in on a secret. While most of my friends really worked hard scouring the internet and friends for recipes from different countries and many trying to convert them into vegetarian fare, I got lucky landing myself a cookbook called The Global Vegetarian. I have to admit, nearly half the recipes I’d be posting through this month are from this book. I picked recipes that seemed interesting and close to the Indian food palate. Reason being, I started cooking for the month-long journey less than a month and a half ago and I did not want to keep experimenting with altogether new dishes for an entire month.

It is interesting to know that the Feijoada (pronounced fay-zwah-da) bean stew is the national dish of Brazil but is actually Portuguese in origin. It is, in fact, is also quite popular in the Indian state of Goa (formerly a Portuguese colony like Brazil). Though it is a non-vegetarian dish, the book suggests the use of roasted vegetables to replace the meat. The recipe suggests the use of black turtle beans. Since I don’t get that variety where I live, I used red kidney beans. Some versions of this stew use white beans or even black eyed peas (like the Goan version).

The stew did taste quite a bit like our Rajma, except that it was milder and allowed the beans and vegetables to do all the talking instead of the garam masala trying to do the tango. All of us had it for dinner along with rice and the tummies were a happy lot that night!

One of the recipes I read online also mentioned the use of a creamy garlic sauce, similar to a garlic-infused béchamel. Although I didn’t think much of it, in the end, I made a teeny bit of it and I have to say it made the dish so much more creamy and dreamy! Don’t ask me about how ‘authentic’ it is though. You might need to reach out to a Brazilian mama for that. But till you do, enjoy this one…

Feijoada Bean Stew

 Ingredients:

Dried kidney beans – 1 cup

Zucchini – 1 (medium), cut into thin diagonals

Green capsicum – 1 (large), diced

Carrot – 1 (large), cut into thin diagonals

Baby corn – 5 (I added it because there were a few lying about that needed to be used up fast)

Tomatoes – 5 (large), chopped fine

Onion – 1 (large), chopped fine

Garlic – 3 fat cloves, minced

Oil – 2-3 tbsp

Red chilli powder – 1tsp (I used 2 tsp paprika powder)

Coriander – a handful, chopped

Garlic sauce for garnish:

Whole wheat flour – 1 tbsp

Butter – 2 tsp

Milk – ¼ cup

Garlic powder -1/2 tsp

Salt – to taste

Method:

To prepare the garlic sauce, melt the butter and sauté the flour in it till it turns fragrant. Add milk and garlic powder and simmer for a couple of minutes till the sauce thicken. Keep stirring all the while. Leave aside to cool

Soak the dried kidney beans in 2 cups of water overnight or for 6-8 hours

Drain and pressure-cook with adequate water till soft. Retain the water in which the beans were cooked

Preheat the oven to 200deg C. Drizzle 1 tbsp of oil over a baking tray. Place carrots, zucchini, capsicum and baby corn in a single layer and drizzle another tbsp of oil over the vegetables. Bake for 15-20 minutes or till the vegetables char at the edges. Turn them over once midway

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add minced garlic and onion and cook till onion turns translucent

Add tomatoes and chilli powder and cook till the tomatoes break down and take on a sauce-like consistency

Add the cooked kidney beans and enough cooking liquid from the beans for a watery gravy

Mash some of the beans with the back of a wooden spoon for the gravy to thicken and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or so till it all comes together

Add half the roasted vegetables and simmer for a further 5 minutes

Remove to the serving dish and sprinkle chopped coriander over it

To serve, pour some of the bean stew over rice. Place the oven roasted vegetables alongside topped with some garlic sauce

NOTES:

The recipe suggests that the roasted vegetables be added to the stew and cooked for a few minutes. I felt the veggies would lose their crispiness, so decided to keep some aside and serve them alongside the stew

 

 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other participating bloggers