My culinary travel has marked almost every country on Earth that is so far considered to be international. I travelled further to Brazil this weekend and discovered the whole different world of cooking. With the help of my Brazilian student ‘L’ we succeeded in bringing to the table the national dish of Brazil ‘Feijoada’. Despite the difficulty to find exact ingredients we managed to produce it as close to the traditional look and taste as possible. ‘L’ was VERY excited and surprised by how well it turned out, being his first time making it by himself. – I said, “It’s all because of my good culinary energy passed on to you.” *ha ha*

It is quite a hearty meal. No wonder why it is cooked once a week or even less occasionally these days. When ‘L’ said traditionally it was made with all weird parts of a pig including ears and feet, I was glad that there was no way we could get them in a supermarket these days. After a long rummage in the meat section we got bacon, ribs and sausages that looked as similar as ones used in the original cooking. As we expected supermarkets didn’t have ‘black beans’, the most crucial ingredient, but we were lucky enough to be close to Paddy’s market, in which I remember seeing them in a Turkish dried nut stall.

The beans took long to cook since we didn’t soak them in water overnight. Then separately barbecued meat was added to the boiled beans after two hours, and came the most interesting part of putting an orange into the pot, which was supposed to help to skim off fat. *I’m not sure, though, whether it REALLY does the job it is meant to do.*

While the pot was simmering away, ‘L’ made special sauce with the liquid reserved from boiling black beans by adding some onion, chili and pepper. This dish is served with special root flour called ‘farofa‘, but the closest we could find was ‘coarse semolina’, and he toasted it together with butter and bacon. Finally, rice was cooked with chopped onion and I was put in charge of making tomato&capsicum salsa, which got a thumbs up from ‘L’. After three hours of cooking, the special dish was finally served and by that time we were so starving.

Feijoada with tomato, capsicum salsa, onion rice, bacon farofa

How does it look? We ate it with Korean beer ‘Cass’, which ‘L’ said tasted quite similar to Brazilian beer. I should say it was the most unusual dish I have ever come across. The crunchy, grainy texture of semolina flour and the colour of the dish being black, which isn’t one of the most appetising colours. The salsa is a must with this heavy dish because it adds a refreshing taste to every single heavy mouthful.

As soon as each plate had been cleared, people started to rub their tummy and close their eyes. We were full of beans-literally-, but instead of getting up and jumping around, we got all knocked out and started dreaming about Brazilian farmers taking a nap under the shade of trees after their big lunch like this.

Hats off to their amazing metabolism and ability to shake around their bum at parties after eating ‘feijoada.’