World's vegan food: the Brazilian feijoada

After the "one ingredient, two recipes" series of posts, I came up with a new idea! I thought about sharing recipes that are typical in different countries, but in a vegan version. What do you think about it? If you want, you can suggest in the comments which recipes you would like to see here...

In this first post, I decided to make one of the most iconic dishes of my country, Brazil. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we will have a full feijoada here! However, without using any pork.

In Brazil, as in all of Latin America, there is a strong culture of eating meat. Therefore, I don't know if my adaptation will be very satisfactory. However, I guarantee that even without meat, feijoada is delicious!

Let's get to the kitchen.

A little bit of history

Feijoada is a typical Brazilian dish. Known for being a mixture of different ingredients, it has a strong and quite remarkable flavor, due to the smoked meats. In addition, it has similarities to European dishes, such as the French cassoulet and the Portuguese "cozido". This, of course, has a historical explanation.

The origin of feijoada dates back to the colonial period when Brazil still belonged to Portugal. During colonization, slaves were responsible for cooking for the coffee barons, who were Portuguese farmers or sons of Portuguese farmers, owners of numerous sugar cane farms.

Using parts of the pig that were not very appreciated, such as the tongue, ear, foot, and tail, the slaves mixed these meats with beans, creating a dense and very tasty broth.

After the end of slavery, at the beginning of the 20th century, feijoada became a very popular dish. Until today, it is considered a symbol of Brazil and is very much appreciated by families, especially on Sundays. Feijoada is a dish served on birthdays, holidays, and also during Carnival. For foreigners visiting the country, it is often a little scary. Many do not understand how Brazilians manage to eat such a heavy dish in a 40° C summer. But, yes, it happens.

For, feijoada is one of my favorite dishes and I consider it "comfort food". When I was little, I had food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. When I was released, my grandmother made feijoada. When I arrived at her house, my parents didn't want me to eat something so heavy, but I started crying and my grandmother ended up making a dish for me. She tells me that I was healthy right away!

Ingredients (2 persons)

Brazil is a huge country. So there are some variations in the ingredients of the traditional feijoada and the side dishes. In the vegan feijoada, I tried to keep my favorite vegetables, and of course mushrooms, which I love! Since the secret of this dish is to have a slightly smoky taste because of the meats, you can also add smoked tofu, for extra flavor!

Feijoada

For feijoada, you will need

1 cup cooked black beans
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 beet chopped into cubes
1 diced carrot
8 sliced shitakes
1 diced eggplant
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce
3 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
orange slices to accompany

Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette is a well-known sauce in Brazil and usually accompanies feijoada. To make it you will need

1 onion sliced into cubes
2 diced tomatoes
parsley to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Sautéed cabbage
Kale is also a very traditional side dish for feijoada. To make it you will need

1 chopped garlic clove
1 mallet of cabbage chopped into very thin strips

Farofa

Finally, we will make simple farofa. For this, you will need

1 cup of toasted cassava flour
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Let's start by preparing the feijoada. First, put the beans to cook. This is a very time-consuming process, so in Brazil, most people use a pressure cooker. The beans need to be cooked only with water and salt and nothing else.

While the beans are on the heat it is time to prepare the other ingredients. Start by browning ½ onion and a clove of garlic in olive oil. Then add the chopped eggplants to saute. When they are soft, you can add the shitake, soy sauce, and barbecue sauce. Saute well until the vegetables are soft and then set aside.

In the same pan, add the other half of the onion, and 1 clove of garlic, and saute the carrot and the beet with a little salt and pepper. Set aside.

Saute the eggplant

Add the shitake mushrooms, soy sauce and barbecue sauce to get a bit of smoky flavour

Once the beans are very soft, add all the ingredients and let them cook on low heat for about 20 minutes so that the flavors are incorporated. If you feel that salt is lacking, add a little.

It's time to all the flavours combine

While the feijoada is gaining texture and flavor, prepare the vinaigrette. Chop the onion and the tomato into small cubes. Then put them in a bowl. Add the juice of one lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper, and finally the parsley. Mix well!

To make the vinaigrette, you just need to chop the ingredients and put all together

To make the farofa, saute the onion and garlic in a frying pan. Then add the manioc flour until golden brown.

Finally, it's time for the kale, which is also super easy to make. Saute ½ onion and 1 clove of garlic in a frying pan and add the cabbage very finely sauteed. It's ready! It's ready!

Now it's time to assemble the dish. I love to add some orange slices to it. The citrus flavors go very well with this dish!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! I look forward to suggestions for more dishes from around the world!

See you next time!

PS: Sorry for the pictures this time. I don't know what happened that the light was too bright... Next post I'll do better! ;)