Rice And Beans - Brazilian Food

Rice and beans are the most famous combination on Brazil, not only on dishes, but also on poetry, songs and literature altogether. It's our basic protein and carbohydrate meal, like the fish and chips from Britain, tough much healthier, for both the rice and the beans are usually cooked instead of deep fryed.

While rice tend to be seasoned before the cooking process � most of the times stir fried with chopped onions and garlic � the beans, who can be either left to soak the night before, or be prepared on a pressure cooker, are seasoned after they are soft and cooked. They go well with garlic, spring onions, bacon, sausages and many other flavors. Rice and beans are usually served with other servings aside � steak, roast chicken, fries, mixed or green salad, to name a few.

But talking about rice and beans is too broad for such a big country � Brazilian Food has many regional traits. Every part of the country has a specific recipe for these popular ingredients. At the northeast of the country, by the coast, at Fortaleza, one can find the popular Baio de Dois, which is made by cooking beans and rice in the same pot and has different flavors, spices and textures than Tutu de Feijo, for instance, a typical dish from Minas Gerais, made with beans, cassava flour, sausages, boiled eggs and bacon, which is served together with plain white rice. Two completely different meals � both very Brazilian � that share the same base ingredients. On the south corner of our Country, you can commonly find Arroz Carreteiro in some restaurants. It's a dish made of rice with meat, usually made with barbecue leftovers from the day before. Acaraj, a famous meal from Bahia State, is also made out of beans you'll find in that area � it's a fryed dough of beans filled with sea food and many different seasonings � make sure you order your "Sem pimenta" if you're not very fond of spicy peppers.

Though beans are typically Brazilian and were found by the Portuguese when they first arrived here, rice was brought to Europe from the middle east, and then to brought to Brazil. In that time, Portugal was bringing slaves from Africa to its new colony. Those slaves mixed the rice that was served to them with the beans that were used by native Indians on their dishes, along with pork meat, considered not appropriate by the church, and then created one of Brazilian famous dishes: feijoada.

Rice and beans are everywhere. In Brazil, we made soups and creams out of beans, as well as dough for pasties, salads, and many other dishes. With rice we create pasties, different side dishes, desserts and so on. The most famous combination we have from these two ingredients would be our famous Feijoada, which is a meal composed of black beans cooked with specific cuts of pork meat, served with white plain rice, toasted cassava flour, Collard Greens leaves stir fryed with garlic, pepper sauce to taste and slices of oranges. And, even in our most famous dish, one can find slightly variations throughout the country � maybe the leaf changes, maybe the oranges. Some restaurants prepare vegetarian feijoada, replacing the pork meat for vegetables, some others prepare a light version of feijoada, using only the noble and lean pork meat cuts. You can even find feijoada prepared with white beans instead of the typical black ones.

They make a good combination for rice detox our organism while beans are good for preventing some types o cancer and even heart diseases. Together they provide a perfect mix of amino acids that are not produced by our body.