Brazilian Black Beans (Feijoada), simple and basic

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Nutritional Info

Servings Per Recipe: 16
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 111.9

Total Fat: 5.0 g
Cholesterol: 12.3 mg
Sodium: 107.8 mg
Total Carbs: 17.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 11.3 g
Protein: 9.7 g

View full nutritional breakdown of Brazilian Black Beans (Feijoada), simple and basic calories by ingredient

Introduction

My mother is from Brasil (and she spells it with an "S"), so I grew up on this dish. She says that the real, good stuff has Portuguese sausage (linguica), bacon, and fresh pork as well as the ham-hocks. But when she got to the states linguica wasn't easy to be found, so she used pepperoni. Anyway, this recipe is how she made it for us.

NOTE: I prefer smoked ham shanks, which taste the same but have more meat and less fat (the hocks have the skin on, shanks don't). Mom would leave the skin from the ham-hocks floating around in the beans so you could eat that too, but I think that's just nasty.
OR you could use a ham bone—leftover from a nice ham (like at Christmas time or something)—to flavor your beans.

This is just a basic, simple recipe. I've seen recipes that use a cup or so of orange juice; recipes that add sauteed onions and garlic at the end (instead of using dried onion); even recipes that add bell peppers and other veggies. My mother is from Brasil (and she spells it with an "S"), so I grew up on this dish. She says that the real, good stuff has Portuguese sausage (linguica), bacon, and fresh pork as well as the ham-hocks. But when she got to the states linguica wasn't easy to be found, so she used pepperoni. Anyway, this recipe is how she made it for us.

NOTE: I prefer smoked ham shanks, which taste the same but have more meat and less fat (the hocks have the skin on, shanks don't). Mom would leave the skin from the ham-hocks floating around in the beans so you could eat that too, but I think that's just nasty.
OR you could use a ham bone—leftover from a nice ham (like at Christmas time or something)—to flavor your beans.

This is just a basic, simple recipe. I've seen recipes that use a cup or so of orange juice; recipes that add sauteed onions and garlic at the end (instead of using dried onion); even recipes that add bell peppers and other veggies.

Number of Servings: 16

Ingredients

NIGHT BEFORE:

1 1/2 lbs. dry black beans

water

1/8 tsp. baking soda

MORNING:

8 oz. smoked ham shanks/hocks (the nutrition info here uses ham hocks)

more water

1/8 tsp. baking soda

dried onion

garlic

2.5 oz. pepperoni stick, sliced

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

makes about 8 cups = 16 half-cup servings

THE NIGHT BEFORE:
Pick over the beans, removing little rocks, dirt clods and nasty-looking beans.
In a large pot, cover beans with water, about 2 inches over the level of the beans.
Add 1/8 tsp. baking soda.
Cover and let the beans soak overnight.

IN THE MORNING:
Drain and rinse the beans; rinse the pot too.
Return beans to pot.
Nestle the ham hocks/shanks into the beans.
Add water to cover by about 2-3 inches.
Add 1/8 tsp. baking soda
Put in some dried onions (about 1 Tbsp.)
Bring to a boil ; reduce heat, cover and simmer for several hours—until beans are tender. During this time, check on them every now and again/ make sure the water doesn't completely simmer away or your beans will burn.
After a few hours, remove the ham. The meat will probably be falling off the bones by now.
Remove meat from bones; discard bones and skin.
Return meat to pot.
Add sliced pepperoni to pot.
Cook about 1 more hour, checking on the water level (it should end up being just enough to cover the beans—so you can see them peeking out—by the time they're done).

Now, if the broth is super-thin (watery) turn the heat to high and boil some of it away.
If it's OK, then just remove about 1/2 cup of beans, mash them and return them to the pot. This will thicken the broth some.

Serve beans on top of a scoop of hot, white rice (not calculated in nutrition info).

Yummy!

Number of Servings: 16

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user MEPLUS9.