Feijão Mexido Gaúcho

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-liter pot
• •Wide 30-centimeter skillet or sauté pan
• •Wooden spoon or sturdy silicone spatula
• •Measuring cups and spoons

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the beans

   Put the beans in a bowl, cover with plenty of water, and leave them overnight, at least 8 hours. They should swell and look a little smoother by morning. Soaking isn't ceremony. It helps the beans cook evenly and sit easier in your stomach, which matters if a gente wants beans to stay in the everyday plate instead of becoming a once-a-month project.

2. 2

   Cook until tender

   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 a bean crushes easily against the roof of your mouth, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Add the salt only when the beans are tender, because salting too early can make the skins stubborn. You want about 4 cups cooked beans with 1 to 1 1/2 cups caldo left in the pot.

3. 3

   Brown the sausage

   Warm the fat in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the diced sausage in one loose layer and cook until the edges are browned and the fat smells savory, 4 to 6 minutes. Give the pieces room. Crowd the pan and the meat releases water, the heat drops, and you steam it grey instead of dourar. Color is flavor, and Tuesday deserves flavor too.

   No sausage? Use only oil and keep going. The dish will be simpler, not broken. Don't replace it with seasoning powder. That's not a shortcut, that's a factory trying to cook in your place.
4. 4

   Make the refogado

   Add the onion to the same skillet and cook, stirring now and then, until it murcha, turns soft, and picks up the browned bits from the sausage, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and black pepper and cook for 1 minute, just until you smell the garlic. Don't let it brown hard. Burnt garlic is bitter and bossy, and it will drag the whole skillet with it.

5. 5

   Mash for caldo

   Scoop 1 cup of the cooked beans with some caldo into the refogado and mash them right in the skillet with the back of a spoon. The beans should break down into a thick paste around the onion and garlic. This is why the final feijão mexido tastes creamy instead of dusty. Cassava flour thickens, yes, but the mashed beans make the caldo glossy and alive.

6. 6

   Stir in beans

   Add the remaining cooked beans and about 1 cup of their caldo to the skillet. Stir gently so some beans stay whole and some melt into the base. Let it bubble quietly for 3 to 5 minutes, until the skillet looks juicy but not soupy. If it seems dry already, add a splash of water or caldo now, before the flour goes in.

7. 7

   Add the flour

   Sprinkle in the cassava flour a little at a time, stirring constantly. Stop when the beans turn thick, spoonable, and hold ridges for a second before settling, usually 1/2 to 3/4 cup flour. Don't dump the whole cup in like you're angry at dinner. Flour swells as it sits, and too much turns creamy beans into a brick.

8. 8

   Finish and serve

   Taste and adjust the salt. Fold in parsley or green onion if using, then turn off the heat and let the skillet sit for 3 minutes. It should stand a spoon but still look moist, with whole beans showing through the cassava crumb. Serve beside arroz soltinho, sautéed couve, and an egg or grilled meat, and look at that: the pê-efe just solved itself.

Chef Tips

• •Yesterday's beans are perfect here because their caldo has already thickened. If you're cooking beans just for this, let them rest 20 minutes after simmering so the broth settles and tastes like beans, not water wearing a bean costume.
• •Use fine cassava flour if you can. Coarse farinha works, but the texture will be more crumbly and rustic in the mouth. Add it slowly either way, because cassava flour keeps drinking after the heat is off.
• •The honest Tuesday shortcut is canned beans. Use three 15-ounce cans, drained but not rinsed, plus 1 cup water. It works, but the caldo won't have the same body, so mash a full cup of beans into the refogado and season carefully.
• •Don't use a seasoning cube or powdered bean seasoning. Onion, garlic, bay, fat, and time are not fancy. They're the foundation. Powder is what someone sells you after convincing you your own hand can't do the work.
• •If the feijão mexido gets too stiff, loosen it with hot water or bean caldo, 2 tablespoons at a time. If it's too loose, sprinkle in 1 tablespoon cassava flour and stir for a minute. That's pegar ponto, not panic.

Advance Preparation

• •Soak the beans overnight, at least 8 hours, before cooking.
• •Cook the beans up to 4 days ahead and keep them refrigerated with their caldo.
• •Freeze cooked beans in 2-cup portions for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge or warm gently with a splash of water.
• •Feijão mexido is best right after stirring in the flour, but leftovers keep 3 days. Reheat with a splash of water because the cassava flour thickens as it sits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 285g)