Vegetarian Baião de Dois

This Brazilian dish of rice and beans is yummy and a complete meal in itself.

Honestly, I had no idea that Baião de Dois existed until a couple of months ago, when a Brazilian friend of mine introduced me to it. I was in the process of researching for this series on rice and beans and was looking for a third dish (apart from Rajma Chawal and Kuru Fasulye) when Débora told me about Baião de Dois.

It may take a few minutes to learn how to pronounce Baião de Dois if you don’t speak Portuguese, but it is worth the effort as both the dish and the meaning of the dish’s name are beautiful. ‘Baião’ is a type of dance in Brazil and ‘dois’ means ‘two’ in Portuguese. ‘Baião de Dois’ means the ‘dance of two’. In this case, the two dancers are rice and beans. They dance together in sync in order to tantalise your taste buds. Isn’t that lovely?

According to Débora (check her out on Instagram @deh_antuness), while the main ingredients of Baião de Dois are rice and beans, the dish also often includes cheese. However, if you are making it the traditional way, the only cheese that is used is coalho cheese, which is similar to halloumi cheese. It is not mandatory to add cheese to the dish and there are several variations without the cheese, she said.

Baião de Dois is a common dish eaten frequently in Northeast Brazil. Usually, the rice and beans are cooked together but we at TVK found that it is faster and equally delicious if we cook the rice separately. If you have time, then do cook them together. Also, it is red chilli pepper that gives the heat in this dish traditionally but we had to substitute with jalapeño due to availability issues. If your local grocery store is carrying red chilli peppers, then do go with that.

Try out our vegetarian version (replace the butter with oil for a vegan Baião de Dois) and let us know how it turned out in the comments!

Vegetarian Baião de Dois recipe

Ingredients:
250 grams black-eyed peas, soaked for 6-8 hours
200 grams cooked white rice
2 tsp butter
2 tsps crushed garlic
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
700 ml water
Salt to taste

Method:
Rinse the soaked black-eyed peas a few times and drain. Set aside.

In a large pan, heat the butter. Sauté the crushed garlic and the chopped onion for a few minutes. Add the chopped bell pepper and the jalapeño, and sauté for a couple of minutes. Then add the chopped tomato and sauté for another minute.

Add the beans to the pan. Add the water and salt as well and mix gently. Cover the pan with a lid and let the beans cook.

When the beans are half cooked (about 15-20 minutes later, depending on your stove) but before the water evaporates, add the cooked rice. This way, the rice will absorb the flavour of the beans.

Continue to cook for another 25-20 minutes, till the water finally evaporates.

Enjoy!