Cooking a Portuguese menu

There’s nothing like learning to cook a Portuguese menu to learn even more about the country you live in. Today, I’ve learned how to cook a complete Portuguese menu to warm up those cold days in Portugal, even though there aren’t many of them (Portugal is said to have 300 days of sunshine a year). That’s all there is to it, so let’s get on with these great home-cooked recipes.

Starter: Caldo Verde

This is one of Portugal’s most popular and traditional soups! A must when you decide to cook a Portuguese menu!

Ingredients:

• 1.5L water
• 500g diced potatoes
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 300g kale, julienned
• 1.5dl olive oil
• ½ Portuguese chourisso, sliced into rings

Preparation:

• Place water in a saucepan and season with salt. Bring to the boil.
• Add the diced potatoes and chopped onion and cook for 15 minutes. Blend.
• Rinse and drain cabbage strips well. Add to the soup and cook uncovered for 10 minutes.
• Add olive oil and bring to the boil quickly, uncovered.

It’s ready! A delicious soup to accompany a good pão com chouriço (Portuguese chorizo bread).

And, if you’re close to Lisbon, I recommend you try this soup at the “A Merendeira” restaurant near Costa da Caparica. It’s simple, inexpensive and convivial!

Fish dish: Bacalhau in Brás

Ingredients:

• 1.5kg cod
• 12 potatoes
• 6 eggs
• 4 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• Parsley

To prepare:

• Leave the cod to desalinate in water, which you will need to renew about 4 to 5 times, for 24 hours.
• Then break up the cod into small pieces, removing the bones. This is quite a time-consuming operation (you can also buy cod without bones, which is much quicker and easier).
• Sauté the onions and garlic in olive and sunflower oils. Add the cod and sauté for about 5 minutes.
• Cut the potatoes into small French fries. Fry briefly to precook.
• Mix the fries, cod, onions and garlic in a frying pan and leave on the heat for 5 minutes.
• Finally, beat the eggs, season with salt and pepper. Add the eggs with the rest of the mixture at the last moment. Leave to heat for a few moments, stirring constantly, without overcooking the eggs. Sprinkle with parsley and stir. Serve piping hot.

Serve with a small green salad and you’re ready to go! Just writing the recipe makes my mouth water, and I must admit that it’s a dish I’m particularly fond of!

Meat dish: Feijoada

Ingredients :

• 500 g black beans
• 5 smoked sausages
• 1 strong chorizo
• 5 large slices smoked brisket
• 2 small beef roulades (cooked long enough)
• 2 carrots
• 3 onions
• thyme and bay leaf
• paprika

To prepare:

• Place the soaked beans with their soaking water in a casserole dish, covering with water if necessary. Add coarse salt, a quartered onion, the 2 sliced carrots, thyme and a bay leaf. Leave to simmer for approx. 1h/1h30. They should still be slightly crunchy.
• At the same time, place the pieces of beef, the chorizo cut into pieces and the smoked bacon in another casserole dish, fill with water and sprinkle with coarse salt. Cook in the same way as the beans.
• At the end of the 2 cookings above, in a third casserole(or in the one you’ve emptied, with meat and stock reserved), brown the remaining 2 onions, thinly sliced, with a little butter. Add the pieces of meat one by one to brown them a little.
• Add the beans/carrots, seared with a skimmer, and cover with some of the bean cooking water (important for the final taste). A little of the meat cooking stock is also preferable.
• Add salt, pepper, 3 tablespoons paprika and the smoked sausages.
• Place over low heat, stirring frequently(cooking until the beans are cooked through, the juices liquefied but still filling the minimum 1/3 of the casserole, i.e. around 1h to 1h30). Serve hot in the casserole dish (serves 5).

You can accompany this dish with rice. My husband loves this dish.

Dessert: Arroz doce

I hesitated between several desserts to propose to you and decided to choose one of Portugal’s must-try desserts. There are many others, but I have to admit that this dessert is easy to make and generally very popular.

Ingredients:

• 200 g rice (short grain)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ground cinnamon
• 1 liter milk
• 1 lemon peel
• 150 g sugar

Preparation

• Cook rice in plenty of water for 5 minutes. Rinse in cold water and drain.
• Bring milk, sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon stick to the boil. Add the rice and cook over a low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Finally, remove the cinnamon and zest. Spoon the rice into a serving dish or individual bowls and leave to cool. Garnish with ground cinnamon. Serve chilled.

In conclusion

This is a rich and complete Portuguese menu! Eat in moderation, or choose to have a main course/dessert or starter/main course or even starter/dessert…well, do as you like, the main thing is to enjoy yourself, isn’t it? Bom apetite!

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