Timor-LesteRecipe 100 of 100
Feijoada Timorense (Bean & Pork Stew)
Feijoada Timorensefay-ZHWAH-dah tee-moh-REN-seh
About this recipe
Feijoada Timorense is Timor-Leste's take on the Portuguese and wider Lusophone bean stew, a clear legacy of centuries of Portuguese presence adapted to the Timorese table. Red or kidney beans are stewed slowly with pork — shoulder or belly, and often a cured sausage — in a rich onion-and-tomato gravy until everything is tender and deeply savoury, and it is served with rice. Because Timor-Leste is a majority-Catholic country, pork is an ordinary and festive food here in a way it is not elsewhere in this book, and this recipe presents it honestly as a pork dish. It is a shared, cross-border dish with its own Timorese character; the book notes that shared Lusophone lineage and logs the regional specifics — bean type, cuts and seasonings — for verification.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- 6 servings
- Prep
- 25 minutes (plus bean soaking)
- Cook
- About 2 hours
- Total
- 145 minutes
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Spice
- Mild to medium
Allergens Contains PORK and legumes. Contains no dairy, gluten (unless the sausage does) or coconut as written. Not vegetarian. See the halal-status field.
Development draft. This is an untested development recipe from the cookbook project. It has not been kitchen-tested, and the quantities and timings are the author’s working draft rather than a verified result.
Ingredients
The beans and pork
- 1 1/2 cups (280 g) dried red kidney beans, soaked overnight (or 3 1/2 cups cooked)
- 1 1/4 lb (570 g) pork shoulder, cut into 1 1/2 in (4 cm) chunks
- 6 oz (170 g) cured pork sausage (chouriço or similar), sliced
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) neutral oil
The gravy
- 2 onions, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp (30 g) tomato paste, or 2 chopped tomatoes
- 1 tsp (2 g) paprika
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 cups (950 ml) water or light stock
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
To finish and serve
- Chopped parsley or scallion
- Steamed rice, to serve
Equipment
- Large heavy pot or Dutch oven
- Bowl for soaking beans
Method
- If using dried kidney beans: drain the soaked beans, cover with fresh water, bring to a boil and boil hard for at least 10 minutes, then simmer until nearly tender, about 45 minutes; drain. (Skip if using cooked beans.)
- Heat the oil in the pot and brown the pork chunks on all sides; remove. Brown the sliced sausage briefly and remove.
- In the same pot, soften the onions and garlic over medium heat until golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and paprika and cook a minute.
- Return the pork to the pot with the bay leaves and the water or stock. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook gently until the pork is tender, about 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Add the cooked beans and the browned sausage and simmer, partly covered, another 30 minutes, until the beans are soft and the gravy is thick and rich. Lightly mash a few beans to thicken if you like.
- Season well with salt and black pepper and discard the bay leaves. Scatter with parsley or scallion.
- Serve hot with plain rice.
The Complete Edition
Feijoada Timorense (Bean & Pork Stew) sits in the Timor-Leste chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Timor-Leste chapter, the pastes and dips it is built on, and the twenty-seven pantry studies that open the collection.
In review with Amazon KDP
Both editions have been submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and are currently in review. Submitted prices are $9.99 for the kindle edition and $49.99 for the paperback. Neither is on sale yet, and prices are as submitted rather than final.