Tuesday, February 21, 2017

feijoada!

Here's the feijoada, cooking away. It smells and tastes like nothing I've had before, but its European roots show through quite clearly. Feijoada is basically a beef-and-bean stew that faintly reminds me of the meat combination found in choucroute alsacienne. Apparently, you're supposed to serve this with a toasted-flour sprinkle and orange wedges on top. My brother David tells me that, the longer you boil the stew, the better it gets. At the same time, David warned that, when feijoada rots, it rots big-time.

What you see in the pic below looks more or less like what I saw in the various feijoada videos on YouTube. A preliminary sampling tastes quite good. I expect this to age into awesomeness by Friday, and will probably use my slow-cooker on Thursday to help it along.

3 comments:

Charles said...

Looks good! I've always wanted to try feijoada, but somehow have never managed to. We even stayed in Little Brazil down in NYC once and I still didn't get around to trying it. Shame on me.

Kevin Kim said...

I took a preliminary taste of the stew after it had simmered for over three hours, and it was fantastic. Very smoky. It feels almost like a Latin answer to choucroute which, being Alsatian, is at least partly Germanic in tenor.

choucroute : feijoada

potatoes : frijoles negros
bacon : bacon
ham : pork chop
Bratwurst : salsiccia
[other French sausages] : jerky + chorizo
sauerkraut : onions + garlic

Feijoada is also supposedly related to dishes like cassoulet, but whatever its culinary connections, it's pretty damn good. I've been thinking about it all day today.

I'm sure you'll find feijoada in Boston. The only caution for you is gall-bladder-related: it's very fatty, which is why most recipes recommend constant skimming of both fat and scum while the stew simmers. I skimmed a ton off my own stew, but there's still a good bit of fat left.

Kevin Kim said...

I probably should've said "Cambridge" instead of "Boston," but Boston's a well-known foodie town, and finding Brazilian food there is more likely than finding a decent place in Cambridge.

Then again...