Luis Enrique is officially giving Manchester United the cold shoulder, preferring to put pen to paper on a new deal with Paris Saint-Germain. United had made the Spaniard one of their absolute top targets, even sending suits over to Paris to desperately try and talk him out of an extension. Enrique, fresh off steering the Parisians to Champions League glory last season, fancies the Parc des Princes over Old Trafford for a couple of very simple reasons. He reckons taking over the chaotic reins at United just isn’t the right project for him right now, and he harbours serious reservations about managing a club that might not even have Champions League football next season.
Instead, the 55-year-old has been having a quiet word with his mate, PSG sporting director Luis Campos, about locking in a new contract that will keep him in the French capital until 2030. It’s a massive blow to the club’s owners, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers, especially since Ratcliffe’s admiration for the former Barcelona boss is an open secret. For now, Michael Carrick is holding the fort as interim gaffer. If Carrick manages to scrape a Champions League spot, he’ll be in the running for the permanent gig come summer, alongside the likes of Thomas Tuchel and Carlo Ancelotti. The top brass at Old Trafford are hunting for a manager who can handle the relentless, boiling-point pressure cooker of expectations. Enrique obviously has the pedigree for it, but he clearly prefers a project that is allowed to simmer properly over time.
Speaking of letting things stew, you can’t rush a good project any more than you can rush a proper slow-cooked meal. Whether you’re trying to build a dominant football dynasty or just bunging a heavy iron pot on the hob, patience is basically ingrained in the culinary DNA of the Americas. There is something almost hypnotic about letting time do the heavy lifting, transforming the toughest, most unyielding cuts into pure butter. Take Brazil’s undisputed king of the dinner table: the feijoada.
It’s a thick, brooding black stew that reels you in the second you catch a whiff from the kitchen. A proper belly-warming riot of black beans, beef, pancetta, and sausages that fundamentally reboots your system. People will spin you a yarn about it coming straight out of Africa, but let’s get it right: black beans are South American through and through. The indigenous Guaraní were all over them long before anyone else, calling them comandá. This isn’t some cobbled-together knock-off or a fussy adaptation; it’s Brazil’s raw identity served up in a bowl.
A Brazilian mate passed down what he swears is the definitive recipe, and to be fair, they all think their own version is the absolute business. You can’t be tight with the ingredients here. Get yourself 500g of black beans, 250g of chorizo (or black pudding if that’s more your bag), 250g of diced beef loin, the same amount of pancetta, and about 300g of pork ribs. For the soul of the base, you’ll need a red and a green pepper, an onion, a couple of garlic cloves, a tomato, two bay leaves, and—trust me on this one, listen to the Brazilian—two slices of orange.
It’s a two-day graft. Soak the beans for a solid 12 hours. The next day, give the sausages, beef, and pork a quick sear in a pan with a splash of oil, then slice the chorizo and dice the pork. Chuck your beans into a massive pot of fresh water, let them sit for half an hour, then bring it to a rolling boil. In goes the pork and chorizo, followed by the loin and pancetta, seasoned to taste. Once it’s bubbling away again, lob in the bay leaves and leave it be for half an hour, giving it the odd stir so it doesn’t catch on the bottom.
Meanwhile, knock up a quick sauté with the onion, garlic, tomato, and peppers. Chuck that whole lot into the big pot along with the orange slices. Blast it on a high heat for 25 minutes, then drop the hob right down to a simmer for another 20 once the beans are tender. You’ll know you’ve nailed it when the broth is stupidly creamy and the meat just falls apart. Serve it up with white rice and farofa—that brilliant, toasted cassava flour mix. One mouthful of that and you’re essentially walking through the Amazon or lounging on a beach in the Northeast.
But a heavy, comforting stew isn’t the only way to build a masterpiece. If feijoada is a reassuring arm around the shoulder, Mexico’s birria grabs you entirely by the scruff of the neck. Hailing from Jalisco, this is a mind-blowing, deeply earthy, spicy red broth where the meat literally shreds itself. Traditionally, they use goat or lamb, but we’ll crack on with beef. The secret weapon isn’t actually the cut of meat you choose; it’s all in the consommé.
It requires a bit of technique, but the actual effort is a doddle. The trick to that earthy kick is blending dried chillies. Go with six guajillos, a couple of anchos, and about ten de árbol (keep four of those back for later). Dry-toast them in a pan for just a couple of minutes until the kitchen smells unbelievable, then chuck them into a bowl with three cups of boiling water for 20 minutes to plump up so they blend properly.
In the same dry pan, you want to tatemar—which is basically just scorching the absolute life out of the edges—five ripe tomatoes, a roughly chopped onion, and three garlic cloves. Leave them for 15 to 20 minutes, turning them over. That charred bit is pure umami, so do not skip this step. Grab roughly a kilo of a tough, slow-cooking cut like roast beef, chuck, or brisket, hacked into two-centimetre chunks. If you can’t find the exact chillies, wing it with a cascabel, a pequin, or a pasilla; it’s all grist to the mill.
The masterstroke of the broth comes down to the spices: a teaspoon of cumin, another of Mexican oregano (which packs a much more bitter punch than the stuff we usually get), half a teaspoon of black peppercorns, a reckless amount of salt, three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, and top it off with a couple of mugs of beef stock instead of water to really ramp up the flavour profile.
Whether it’s coaxing the absolute best out of a stubborn cut of brisket or trying to steer a massive football club back to the top of the pile, the fundamentals are exactly the same. You can’t just crank the heat up to maximum, throw money at the problem, and expect miracles by teatime. Some things just need time on the back burner. It seems Luis Enrique knows that perfectly well, even if the hierarchy at Old Trafford are still desperately trying to find a shortcut.
