Portuguese Bean Stew (Feijao A Portuguesa)
- Ready In:
- 2hrs 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 10
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 1 lb dried navy beans or 1 lb great northern bean, picked over
- 1 lb sliced bacon
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 -5 cups water
- 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
- 1 lb Portuguese chourico or 1 lb spanish chorizo sausage, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
- 1⁄2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- salt and pepper
directions
- Soak beans in cold water to cover by 2 inches, for 8 hours.
- Cook bacon in a large pot until crisp.
- Transfer to paper towels to drain.
- Discard all but 3 tablespoons of bacon drippings.
- Cook onion in bacon drippings over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown; about 7-9 minutes.
- Add garlic and cook, stirring until it becomes golden.
- Drain beans and add to onion mixture with remaining ingredients (except bacon).
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until beans are tender; about 1 1/2 hours.
- Crumble bacon into beans and season with salt and pepper before serving.
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Reviews
-
Very good--nice and spicy and hearty. I had to cook the beans for closer to 2 hours to get them tender and I think I might have liked them even better cooked longer. I just ran out of paprika so I omitted that and I used spicy Italian sausage (removed it from the casing and crumbled it in chunks after it was boiling).
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I cannot rate *this* recipe because I had to make so many substitutions, but even so, what I made with this as inspiration turned out to be a basic bean and meat soup. I was disappointed. The substitutions: I made my own chorizo (#12818); instead of tomato paste used a can of whole tomatoes, crushed, plus a cube of tomato bouillon, plus 5 sun-dried tomatoes, sniped into slivers. I also added hot green peppers (I haven't seen this type in the U.S., so I don't know what they might be called, here they just say they're "loot"--angry, meaning hot). Anyway, two days later I'm eating the leftovers in hopes that the flavor has developed a little more, but no. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes!
Tweaks
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I cannot rate *this* recipe because I had to make so many substitutions, but even so, what I made with this as inspiration turned out to be a basic bean and meat soup. I was disappointed. The substitutions: I made my own chorizo (#12818); instead of tomato paste used a can of whole tomatoes, crushed, plus a cube of tomato bouillon, plus 5 sun-dried tomatoes, sniped into slivers. I also added hot green peppers (I haven't seen this type in the U.S., so I don't know what they might be called, here they just say they're "loot"--angry, meaning hot). Anyway, two days later I'm eating the leftovers in hopes that the flavor has developed a little more, but no. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes!