Um experimente
I went to Aldi this afternoon thinking I was "just" going to get some more milk and butter, and "whatever else I'm out of", which would probably be, what, a $10-15 trip? $45 later I am faced with how quickly these things add up. I got a big canister of coffee, because I've been burning through mine pretty quickly, and for $10 for a whole big container I thought that's probably a good deal. I've gotten coffee to-go once in the last two months or so. I think my coffee spending is reasonable. $10 to take me to the end of May (or beyond) is good. I "splurged" also on chicken thighs that were not the cheapest ones in the store. I got the $2-something per pound kind instead of the $1.19. Will it make all the difference? We'll see! I still have three drumsticks left to cook, though. I got baking powder because I want to try it in pancakes, and garlic powder because I've been wanting it for months but it's never been in the budget! I wanted to wait to get better or at least more-Chinese soy sauce from a Chinese grocery, but I figured I had all this rice still that was going to be difficult to eat with not soy sauce. So I got some Aldi soy sauce. Oh well.
A few weeks ago I consulted with a Brazilian friend about how to recreate the arroz com feijão (beans and rice) that is a staple of the Brazilian diet and that she made for me a few times a decade ago when I lived there. I remembered trying on my own six years ago in Chicago when the results were not very impressive. So she walked me through what she does, which is basically:
- soak your beans overnight if you don't have a pressure cooker (I don't)
- throw out the soaking water and boil the beans in fresh water until they are soft or al dente or whatever you want
- meanwhile fry some onions and garlic in oil/butter in another pan until golden
- put some of the feijão in that pan, stir it over heat until it thickens, then put that, along with all the garlic and onion, into the main pot
- keep stirring that until it's the consistency you want.
So that's what I did, though not before making myself some hot-sardines-on-toast as a holdover snack.
I prefer the small sardines, these big ones are a little grotesque.
One challenge was that I needed the same pot for the rice and the beans. So I cooked the rice first, while making my sardine toast, and cooked a lot, so I could have some leftover. Once I was done eating my toast, the rice was done, so I parceled it out into containers, and kept some in a bowl for the beans, later. I washed the pan and continued with the beans.
The beans took longer to cook than I expected. Maybe it was 15-20 minutes of pretty vigorous boiling, after soaking them for over 24 hours. I didn't know how much water to add; I didn't know if it was picky, like rice, but it doesn't seem like it. I wound up topping off the water a few times to keep it wet. I should have topped up more. It was not quite as saucy as I would have liked.
I'm not Brazilian, so even the best feijão is not quite crave-worthy, though it's very respectable peasant food. The best stuff is. The stuff I made, I guess it was okay; it was peasant food, all right, but I'm not sure how respectable. The rice had gotten pretty cold by then which took away some of the pleasure of it. I probably under-seasoned the beans, so I was adding some salt (and garlic powder because why not) in post-production. I also think it was too dry, something I can fix next time. But it was certainly filling, and I watched a ton of Arabic interviews while eating my small plate; it took some time to get it all down.
It was successful in that I am fed, but I am glad there were no Brazilians in the room. Well, actually, no, that would have been good, maybe he or she could have helped improve it. I'll try it again. I've got plenty of beans left. I'll get the hang of it.
Abraços, N.