Baião de Dois com Carne de Sol e Queijo Coalho

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-liter pot with lid
• •Medium bowl for soaking beans
• •Second bowl for soaking carne de sol
• •Sieve or colander
• •Wooden spoon or sturdy silicone spoon
• •Measuring cups and spoons

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak and taste

   Put the feijão verde in a bowl, cover with plenty of water, and soak overnight, at least 8 hours. If your carne de sol is very salty, put the cubes in a separate bowl of cold water for 2 to 4 hours, changing the water once. Taste a tiny cooked or seared corner later before salting the pot. Soaking the beans helps them cook evenly and sit easier, and soaking the meat gives you seasoning instead of a salt attack.

   Honest Tuesday shortcut: canned black-eyed peas work if you drain and rinse them. Use about 3 cups and skip the bean simmering. It won't give you the same caldo, so mash a few beans well in the refogado to help the pot turn creamy.
2. 2

   Cook the beans

   Drain the soaked beans and put them in a heavy pot with 7 cups water and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer with the lid partly open. Cook until the beans are tender but still holding their shape, about 30 to 45 minutes. Bite one. It should give without turning to paste. You want beans that can finish with the rice instead of collapsing into mud.

3. 3

   Save the caldo

   Drain the beans through a sieve set over a bowl and save 4 cups of the cooking liquid. Pull out the bay leaves. Keep the beans separate for now. That greenish bean caldo is not dirty water, it's flavor and body for the rice, and throwing it away would be paying for dinner twice.

4. 4

   Brown the meat

   Pat the carne de sol dry with a towel. Warm 2 tablespoons oil or manteiga de garrafa in the same pot over medium-high heat and brown the meat in two or three batches, 3 to 4 minutes per batch, until the edges turn deep amber. Take each batch out to a plate. Don't crowd the pan. Packed meat releases water, the heat drops, and you steam it grey instead of dourar it properly.

5. 5

   Build the refogado

   Lower the heat to medium. If the pot looks dry, add 1 more tablespoon oil. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring and scraping the browned bits from the bottom, until the onion goes soft and see-through, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic for 1 minute, just until you smell it, then add the tomato and cook until it slumps and looks glossy, about 3 minutes. This is the refogado doing its job: turning ordinary aromatics into the base of the whole pot.

6. 6

   Cream the base

   Add one ladle of the cooked beans to the refogado and mash them against the side of the pot with your spoon. Stir until the refogado looks thick and a little creamy. This is not decoration, it's structure. The mashed beans thicken the caldo naturally, so the final baião tastes joined together instead of like rice and beans that met five minutes ago.

7. 7

   Toast the rice

   Add the rinsed, drained rice and stir for 1 to 2 minutes, until the grains look shiny and separate. This quick refogar coats the rice in fat and flavor, which helps it cook soltinho instead of clumping. Add the browned carne de sol back to the pot and stir once.

8. 8

   Cook the pot

   Add 3 cups of the reserved bean caldo, the salt, and the black pepper. Stir once, taste the liquid, and adjust carefully because the carne de sol may still bring salt. Bring to a lively simmer, then lower the heat, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Don't stir while the rice cooks. Stirring breaks the grains and wakes up starch, and then you wonder why your arroz soltinho turned sticky.

9. 9

   Fold in beans

   After 15 minutes, scatter the cooked beans over the rice, cover again, and cook 5 more minutes, adding up to 1/2 cup more bean caldo only if the pot is dry and the rice is still hard. The rice should be tender, the beans whole, and the bottom moist without being soupy. Let the pot tell you. A recipe is a map, not a bossy aunt.

10. 10

    Rest and finish

    Turn off the heat and let the pot rest, covered, for 10 minutes. Then fold gently with a fork, not a heavy hand, so the grains stay separate. Stir in the queijo coalho, cilantro or parsley, green onions, and the optional spoon of manteiga de garrafa. The cheese should soften and turn glossy in little salty pockets, not melt into a sauce. Serve with sautéed couve or a simple green salad, because the pê-efe likes something green beside all this comfort.

Chef Tips

• •Carne de sol is not the same as carne seca or charque. Carne de sol is usually less dry and less salty, so it needs less soaking. Carne seca and charque can work, but soak longer and taste before salting, or the pot will shout at you.
• •If you can only find fresh feijão verde in season, use it. It cooks faster, often 15 to 25 minutes, and tastes sweeter and greener. When it isn't good or cheap, dried black-eyed peas are honest and reliable. Cook with the season and the season cooks for you.
• •Queijo coalho should hold its shape in the pot. Cut it into small cubes and fold it in off the heat, so you get soft salty pieces instead of a vanished dairy puddle.
• •Do not replace the refogado with seasoning powder. That's not saving time, that's being sold the powdered version of dinner. Onion, garlic, tomato, and the brown bits from the meat do the work.
• •This is excellent batch cooking. Cool leftovers quickly and refrigerate in shallow containers. Reheat with a splash of water or bean caldo, covered, so the rice loosens without drying out.

Advance Preparation

• •Soak the beans overnight, at least 8 hours, in plenty of water.
• •If the carne de sol is very salty, soak it 2 to 4 hours ahead, changing the water once. Carne seca or charque may need 8 to 12 hours.
• •The beans can be cooked up to 2 days ahead. Refrigerate the beans and their caldo separately, then continue from the refogado step.
• •Leftovers keep 4 days in the fridge and freeze for up to 2 months. The cheese texture changes a little after freezing, but dinner is still solved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)