「Virado à Paulista」

Virado à Paulista is a classic dish from my Brazilian home state: São Paulo!

The Virado à Paulista is a full meal dish, comprises of tutu – a feijão stew thickened with corn or cassava flour, one (usually large) pork steak, pork sausage, one fried egg, grilled banana, cracklings and stir fried kale. A great energy boost for your long day of work ahead! If you pay a visit to São Paulo, it is a typical dish served on Mondays as a lunch menu option.

This dish has roots from the colonization period of Brazil back in 1500s, when the Portuguese expeditions (also known as the Bandeirantes) carried their meals in portable containers together with all their equipment. These meals usually comprised of pork meat, bean stew and flour. All the shaking from the trip caused the mixture to become one single entity, very similar to the virado we know today; hence the name Virado à Paulista.

“Virado”, in Portuguese, means “flipped”; “paulista” is the word we use to refer what is from the state of São Paulo… That’s our  São Paulo-style flipped meal.

Especially after cooking a huge batch of beans, this recipe is a good idea if you have tons of feijão stew but no ideas on how to use them. Don’t waste the beans, virado is a tasty and succulent dish!

1. 250g of cooked beans (including the liquid)
2. 50g of smoked bacon, cut in small cubes
3. 2 garlic cloves
4. 4 tablespoons of toasted cassava flour
5. Half onion, diced
6. A bunch of chopped parsley and green onion mix (we call it cheiro verde in Brazil)
7. 1 bay leaf
8. 1 pork steak
9. A small smoked sausage
10. A kale leaf, cut in strips
11. Half garlic clove, cut in slices.
12. 1 egg
13. 1 banana
14. Juice of one lemon
15. 1 tbsp of butter
16. Cooked rice
17. Salt

1. Using a pan, heat 1 tbsp of oil on medium heat.
2. Fry the bacon cubes until the bacon is golden brown.
3. Remove the excess fat from the pan with a paper towel.
4. Add the onion and stir-fry until golden brown. Then add the garlic and stir-fry as soon as it become golden brown.
5. Include the cooked beans to the pan.
6. Add the bay leaf, the parsley and green onion mix and season with salt.
7. Gradually mix the cassava flour to the pan, stirring constantly until the desired consistency. Reserve.
8. Season and grill the pork steak using a frying pan, then set it aside.
9. Grill the smoked sausage until cooked then reserve it.
10. Prepare the stir-fried kale by heating a small pan with olive oil.
11. Add half garlic clove and fry until golden. Afterwards, add the kale and flash cook it, stirring constantly.
12. Season the ingredients with a pinch of salt. Drop the butter and mix until cooked. Reserve.
13. Fry the egg in oil. Reserve.
14. For the bananas, add the lemon juice and a pinch of sugar. Reserve.
15. Finally, assemble the dish using all the ingredients you have prepared.

It is significantly more common to serve the banana breaded, also known as banana à milanesa in Portuguese.

One of the classic ways to enjoy the Virado à Paulista is mixing everything all together before start eating the dish.

You may also serve the dish with hot sauce as an extra seasoning.