Feijão-carioca

The bean has body and no fat. Lard fixes that and browns the mash on top.

Nixtamalised corn and cooked pulse make a complete protein. Also they taste right.

Fry it in the fat before the bean goes in; you are building the only stock there is.

Smoke slots into the bean gap where meat would normally sit.

Salt and lactic sharpness on something deliberately flat.

Nitrite cure and bean sugar brown together. That is the whole pot of beans.

Acid to cut the fat you just added. Charred, not raw.

Mexican oregano is citrus-resin, not Italian grass. It lifts a heavy pot.

Dried chilli with raisin sweetness — the bean reads sweeter than it is.

Malt bitterness into the cooking liquid; the bean drinks it and keeps the hops.

Shared roast pyrazines. A shot in the pot reads as long cooking, not coffee.

Crushed over the mash: bitter crunch on soft earth, no sugar anywhere near it.