Brazil 🇧🇷 vs Morocco 🇲🇦: Feijoada Couscous Bowl

Welcome back to Flavours of the World Cup, where I’m turning the tournament’s fixtures into fusion dishes inspired by both nations.

Feijoada is widely regarded as Brazil’s national dish. Traditionally it’s made with black beans and meat, but I wanted to create a plant-based version using (you guessed it!) … tofu instead.

For the Moroccan influence, I seasoned the beans with cumin, cinnamon and turmeric before serving them with fluffy couscous and a simple tomato, onion and parsley salad.

Brazil and Morocco might be thousands of miles apart, but this combination worked surprisingly well.

• 1 brown onion, finely chopped

• 4 garlic cloves, minced

• 300g block extra firm tofu, patted dry + chopped into 1cm cubes

• 2× 400g tins black beans (with their liquid)

• 2 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp turmeric

• ½ tsp cinnamon

• 2 bay leaves

• 50-100ml vegetable stock (adjust as required)

To serve

• 200g couscous (around 50g per person)

• Enough hot vegetable stock to cover

• Large handful fresh parsley, leaves finely chopped

• 2 large vine tomatoes, finely diced

• ½ red / brown onion, finely diced

• Small handful fresh parsley, finely diced

• Olive oil, salt + pepper

1. Warm a good glug of olive oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onion with a good pinch of salt + fry for 5 minutes until softened.

2. Add the garlic, frying for a further minute until fragrant. Add the tofu, frying for a minute or two, then add the spices and stir for 30 seconds.

3. Add the black beans with their liquid, then the stock + bay leaves. Bubble away for 20 minutes, or until nicely thickened, seasoning to taste.

4. Prepare the couscous according to packet instructions (I just covered with enough boiling water, let it sit for 5 minutes, then fluffed through with a fork). Mix through chopped parsley, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil + season well with salt + pepper.

5. For the salad, simply combine the chopped tomato, onion and parsley. Season with salt, pepper, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil + a squeeze of lemon / lime if you like.

6. Serve everything together in a bowl + enjoy!

🇧🇷 Brazil are the most successful nation in World Cup history, winning the tournament five times and appearing at every World Cup since 1930.

🇲🇦 Morocco made history in 2022 by becoming the first African nation ever to reach a World Cup semi-final.

To see how this dish scored out of 100, check out the video across my socials.

As always, let me know if you give it a go in the comments below!

Alfie x