Cooking is hard... or so most people say. Making food for yourself, like boiling some pasta and putting an hamburger on the gril is easy, but hardly something you could make for a dinner with your m8s, not something that you can properly enjoy. That kind of food takes skill and practice... or maybe not.

Not every food recipe takes a major degree in order to understand and prepare, some things taste great, in spite of being very simple. This is a Portuguese recipe, with so many variations inside the country but all with one similar logic, boil stuff in a way that tastes good. I'll give you the basics, after that it's up to you.

Cozido à Portuguesa

Iconic, rich, tasty. One of the most famous and infamous dishes of the country, it's related to the country traditions of making good use of the available resources. Nowadays you can find it in any topical restaurant from the most common to the highest ranked ones. It's a dish that can easily adapted, changed, played with. On with the recipe.

Step 1

Aromatic meat
1 smoked meat sausage
1 blood sausage
1 pork sausage made of flour and spices

Try to get 2 out of 3. Leave them on water for an hour before cooking, to remove some of the salt in it. Discard that water after.

Basic meat, when you buy it, may sure it's appropriate to boil, don't buy meat that you would usually fry or grill, different meat for different objectives, got it?
1 kg beef
1 kg pork rib steak

Place all inside a pan with water, no need to cut anything yet, and boil it at medium fire. It's important that it cooks slowly, so the fat in the meat melts, instead of turning into a rubbery texture. It takes about half an hour, maybe less, depending on the temperature. Don't forget the lid (is that the correct word?) we don't want to lose much of that water.

Step 2

Wile things are cooking, it's time to cut the vegetables.
2 carrots
3 potatoes
1 portuguese cabbage, or heart cabbage... or any other that taste well boiled.

Cut them as you like... truly... you can cut in very small portions, that's the way I like it or in big ones... do what every you like. My only recommendation is that you take that hard central part of the cabbage, cut it by half and remove it with a V shape cut.

Step 3

Remove the meat from the pan and place the vegetables in that same pan, we are going to use that water full of aroma from the meat to cook the vegetables. Cut the aromatic meat in small peaces and save the juices that will fall back into the pan. Save that meat, you don't need to cook it any more. Now cut the other meat in small peaces as well but put it back into the pan, that meat can use a little bit more of cooking. Another half hour should do the trick.

Step 4
Boiled white rice, simple with just a bit of salt. Goes great with the dish because of all the juices that it has.

Step 5
Red beans already cooked. You will find cans in most supermarkets with previously cooked beans, it's easy to use and adds another interesting texture into the dish.

Place the beans in the pan and let it cook for a wile, you can raise the temperature a bit, but don't burn it. Its time for the water to evaporate so don't cover the pan with the lid. Also its time to check the salt, had a little if you feel it's not enough and check again in 5 minutes.

Serve it with the rice and enjoy :P

I made it sound as simple as possible, for cooking beginners. It's a simple process of boiling everything you had in the same water in order to preserve the flavor. Because it is so simple, the trick, if any, resides in the quality of the products.

Here is another version, his English is better then mine, I believe. So use it if my recipe is too confusing.

Enjoy :)