Baião de dois is a Ceará dish that spread across the Northeast: rice cooked in the broth of black-eyed peas (feijão-de-corda), finished with grilling cheese (queijo coalho). Halloumi is the US stand-in for the cheese. The name is the dance (baião) plus the two staples in one pot. It is a weekday plate in the sertão, and it also shows up as a churrasco side, especially in Rio Grande do Norte. Toasted cassava flour (farofa) and Brazilian tomato-onion sauce (vinagrete) still belong on the table. This replaces plain white rice, not those two.
What it is
The rice is not cooked separately and stirred in at the end. It goes into the bean pot and absorbs the broth. The beans stay whole. The finished pot is moist and linked, not soupy and not dry. Cubes of queijo coalho go in off the heat so they soften and stay visible.
Câmara Cascudo placed the dish in Ceará. In Ceará the classic pot does not take carne seca. Other northeastern states add shredded sun-dried salted beef (carne de sol) or carne seca, and sometimes bacon. Rio Grande do Norte is the place where it became a regular barbecue accompaniment. In Paraíba and Pernambuco a close cousin is called rubacão. A Cajun pot of kidney beans and rice is another dish; it is not baião de dois.
The bean
Black-eyed peas (feijão-de-corda), also sold as feijão fradinho, are a cowpea. In a US store, dried black-eyed peas are the bean. Fresh feijão verde (the same bean, young, still in the pod) is the Ceará preference and is hard to find here. Black beans, pinto, and kidney beans change the color and the taste.
Ingredients (about 6 sides)
- 1 1/2 cups (10 oz/ 280 g) dried black-eyed peas
- 2 cups (13 oz/ 370 g) long-grain white rice, rinsed
- 3 tablespoons (45 g) bottled Brazilian butter (manteiga de garrafa), or melted salted butter
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 7 oz (200 g) grilling cheese (queijo coalho) or halloumi, 1/2-inch cubes
- 2 cups (480 ml) reserved bean broth
- 2 cups (480 ml) hot water
- 1/2 teaspoon (1/2 colher de chá) fine salt if you add dried meat or bacon; 1 teaspoon (1 colher de chá) if the pot is beans, rice, and cheese only
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) chopped parsley and green onion (cheiro-verde), or cilantro (coentro)
Optional, not Ceará: 5 oz (150 g) sun-dried salted beef (carne de sol) or carne seca, soaked, boiled, and shredded — leftover grilled steak if you cannot buy the dried meat, a pot fallback, not the fridge cure; 3 oz (80–100 g) bacon, diced. Taste before you add the measured salt. Dried meat and coalho are already salty.
Method
Cover the peas with water and simmer until tender but intact, 35 to 50 minutes (or about 15 minutes at pressure). They should mash with a press, not fall apart. Drain, and keep 2 cups of the cooking liquid. If you come up short, add hot water to make 2 cups.
If you are using bacon, render it in a heavy pot over medium heat, then add the butter. If not, melt the butter. Cook the onion until soft, about 4 minutes, then the garlic for 30 seconds. If you are using shredded carne seca, stir it in now and cook 2 minutes.
Add the rice and stir until the grains look wet, about one minute. Add the cooked peas, the 2 cups of broth, the 2 cups of hot water, and the measured salt. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook on medium-low until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed, 15 to 18 minutes. The pot should be moist and spoonable, not a risotto and not a dry pilaf. If it tightens too early, add a splash of hot water.
Turn off the heat. Fold in the cheese cubes and the cheiro-verde. Cover 2 to 3 minutes so the cheese softens. Leave the cubes in pieces.
At a churrasco
Make it while the meat rests, or make it earlier and reheat with a splash of water on low. Serve hot, in a bowl, next to picanha, fresh garlic pork sausage (linguiça toscana), or carne de sol. It is the same job as arroz de leite on a northeastern table: starch and fat against salt and char. Cassava (macaxeira), farofa, and vinagrete can sit beside it.
Leftovers thicken in the fridge. Loosen with water or a spoon of butter on low heat. Use within three days.
What not to do
The rice cooks in the bean broth — that is the dish. Canned chili beans and a tomato-heavy sauce are another pot. The cheese cubes are part of the plate if you can get coalho or halloumi. The cheese is already salty.
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