Chef Stephen Jackson’s Brazilian-style beef dish: Picanha with feijoada

Mar 12 2009 By Andrew Jackson

HELLO everyone. Last week I was on holiday in Portugal, in the Algarve, a place I’ve not been for many years.

It was a most enjoyable week of golf and gluttony, the highlight of which was one of the most memorable dishes I’ve had in many moons and I’d like to tell you all about it and offer my domesticated version.

The dish I ate was Brazilian in origin and combined two of the classic recipes from the South American country.

Picanha is essentially a long skewer, onto which is pushed several large, well-seasoned steaks from the sirloin or top rump.

The skewer is placed in front of a grill and rotated until the outer layers of the meat are cooked.

Then, the skewer is brought to the table and sliced theatrically by a waiter and the customer uses little tongs to remove the juicy outer layers, much like you see in kebab shops.

The meat then gets taken back to the kitchen to be cooked again and this proceeds until the steaks are finished, or, as in our case, when you simply can’t eat any more. Boy, was I pogged!

To accompany this delicious meat we were served a sort of feijoada, which is the name given to a group of dishes served as a feast in Brazil.

Feijoada comprises many elements, but chiefly includes a casserole of black beans, a few smoked sausages, deep-fried bananas, rice, some fried potatoes, a fruity pepper salsa and manioc flour, lightly-toasted and mixed with smoky bacon.

Oh and a chargrilled pineapple.

I know what you’re thinking. I did too. Way too many flavours! But here’s the thing – it works. It works SO well. I was utterly entranced.

The smokiness of the sausages and beans, the fruit of the salsa and crunchy-coated banana and the rich, juicy beef. Oh, it was an epiphany.

I can still taste it now and I’m desperate to get going on my own version.

Some of the ingredients may be hard to find, but there’s fun to be had in trying to find suitable replacements.

I can pretty much guarantee we’ll not be able to find linguiça sausages round these parts, but we should thank the Poles, of whom there are many in the Huddersfield area, for their kielbasa and kabanos, both of which would be fine substitutes here. Manioc flour is also not easy to find – try health food or African stores, but it’s the least important of the additions.