Portuguese Bean Stew (Feijao A Portuguesa)

Submitted by ratherbeswimmin

"This recipe is from David Leite of <a href="http://www.leitesculinaria.com">Leite's Culinaria</a>. My family and I love it so much. Wonderfully spicy. Beans need to soak overnight."

 

• 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

1. Soak beans in cold water to cover by 2 inches, for 8 hours.
2. Cook bacon in a large pot until crisp.
3. Transfer to paper towels to drain.
4. Discard all but 3 tablespoons of bacon drippings.
5. Cook onion in bacon drippings over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown; about 7-9 minutes.
6. Add garlic and cook, stirring until it becomes golden.
7. Drain beans and add to onion mixture with remaining ingredients (except bacon).
8. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until beans are tender; about 1 1/2 hours.
9. Crumble bacon into beans and season with salt and pepper before serving.

Reviews

[Marla Swoffer]

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).

 

[KWB5015]

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!