My wonderful former client, Pam, asked if I would send her a few recipes from the meal delivery months and months ago. I thought it would be fun to put them on the blog, so I promised to do so, months and months ago.
And the list of them has pretty much sat there on my to-do list since then, months and months ago.
But lately I feel the need to remember that my life wasn’t always endless trips to the hardware store and clothes with paint stains all over them. Once upon a time I cooked!
In remembrance of things past, here’s a great dish from those days, feijoada.
You can see a not-great photo of feijoada from the meal delivery archives here. The next time I make it, I’ll plate it up nicely and take a photo to accompany this post.
Feijoada is a Brazilian rice and bean dish, almost always made with citrus and olives. It’s pronounced “feij-wada” with the “feij” sort of rhyming with “veg.” I first learned to make it at Bloodroot, and my recipe is based on theirs. Usually I’m no fan of citrus in savory foods, but the oranges in this dish really work. Like Bloodroot, I serve this dish with a homemade lemony hot sauce. The super simple recipe for it is below, and it will keep a few weeks in the fridge.
I’ve scaled both these recipes down from my gigantic meal delivery service-sized potions, so let me know if anything got lost in the math.
Feijoada
2 c black beans, cooked
2 onions, diced
3 red peppers, sliced
grape seed or canola oil
2 Tb. dried oregano or 3 Tb fresh oregano, chopped
1 Tb. freshly ground cumin
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c red wine
1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped
sea salt
fresh pepper
3 Tb. lemon juice
1/4 c dark rum
3/4 c black olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
2 bunches kale or other leafy green or steamed vegetable, washed, coarsely chopped, steamed. This is pretty much optional, but nice.
zest from 1 orange
1 cup long grain brown rice, cooked
- Sauté onions and peppers in grape seed oil, adding spices and garlic in at end.
- Add cooked beans, wine, tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.
- Stir in rum, olives, zest, kale, and lemon juice. Taste and adjust flavors if necessary.
- Serve over rice with hot sauce on the side.
lemon pepper hot sauce
1 c very finely chopped onion (resist the urge to chop it in the food processor unless you want a big watery mess)
1 clove garlic, made into a paste (chop it as finely as possible, adding a little salt and using the side of your knife to scrape everything together into a heap periodically, then chopping it and scraping it together and again until it becomes a paste.)
3-5 bottled pickled jalapeño peppers, finely minced
2/3 c lemon juice
Salt
- Mix all ingredients.
