Meat typically takes the spotlight in most stew recipes, often leaving vegetables and aromatics feeling like an afterthought. However, meat can serve as a fantastic complementary ingredient when paired with silky greens and creamy beans. Drawing inspiration from the traditional Portuguese feijoada stew, which combines beans, cabbage, sausage, and various pork cuts, this recipe from our cookbook “Milk Street 365: The All-Purpose Cookbook for Every Day of the Year” offers a modern twist on this classic dish.
Feijoada is known for its hearty, stick-to-your-ribs nature, traditionally enjoyed as a midday meal on Saturdays or for Sunday lunch. While the original recipe calls for tougher cuts of meat that require prolonged cooking to tenderize, we opt for chorizo in this version. Chorizo, a flavor-packed sausage with a robust and smoky taste, infuses the vegetables and legumes with its distinctive flavors, resulting in a lighter and more contemporary take on this rustic stew. It is important to use Spanish chorizo, a dry-cured sausage with a firm, sliceable texture, rather than fresh Mexican chorizo for this recipe.
To deepen the flavors of the dish, tomato paste, already rich in sweet and concentrated flavors, is browned at the beginning of the cooking process. This browning step activates glutamates, complex flavor compounds that enhance the umami taste and overall savory richness of the stew. Canned beans, either pinto or pink beans, are used to streamline preparation, while bittersweet collard greens are slowly simmered for about half an hour until they become luxuriously tender. The addition of fruity sweet paprika further enhances the chorizo’s flavor profile.
Before serving, taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as needed. For a finishing touch, drizzle the soup with a little extra olive oil. This Paprika-Pinto Bean Soup with Collard Greens recipe is designed to serve 6 to 8 people and can be prepared in just 50 minutes.
Ingredients:
– 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
– 2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
– Kosher salt and ground black pepper
– 4 ounces Spanish chorizo, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
– 1/4 cup tomato paste
– 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
– Two 15 1/2-ounce cans pinto beans OR pink beans, rinsed and drained
– 1 bunch collard greens OR lacinato kale, stemmed, leaves chopped
Directions:
1. In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, warm 2 tablespoons of oil until shimmering. Add the onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt, then cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, approximately 10 minutes.
2. Add the chorizo and tomato paste to the pot, then cook, stirring often, until the paste browns and starts to.
