Food is said to be the heart and soul of a culture and
certainly Portuguese food is easy to love. Fresh seafood is on every menu in a
country where nowhere is that far from the Atlantic Ocean. Olives and olive oil
abound, turning even ordinary boiled potatoes or a lettuce-and-tomato salad into
a major taste sensation. The toothsome bread is a star at every meal.
Portuguese food is not spicy but still has loads of rich taste.
Many traditional dishes are cooked long and slowly to develop the perfect
fusion of flavours.
Breakfast is not a big deal here. Most Portuguese have
coffee and a pastry, or perhaps toast with cheese and ham. We were in a café for
breakfast and I wanted more than the usual pastry. I saw a woman with a lovely
thick slice of toast slathered in butter. That’s what I wanted, but I didn’t
know what to order. I looked at the menu posted behind the counter and saw
several versions of torrado, which I figured must be toast. I took a chance and
ordered “Pao Sementes Torrado c/ Manteiga” which turned out to be a toasted
multi-grain bun with butter. Perfect! Sometimes it’s fun to ignore Google
Translate and just take a chance.
When you sit down in a restaurant for lunch or dinner, the
server will bring you the “couvert,” usually bread and olives, but sometimes also
butter, sardine paste or cheese. This is not free, like in North America, and
it’s not tapas, like in Spain. If you don’t want it, you simply ask the server
to take it away. If you do eat it, you’ll be charged a Euro or two. My
favourite couvert offering was some lightly pickled carrots in garlic oil.
Bread Portuguese bread is probably the best I’ve had
anywhere. The smallest little café or corner store or grocery store will have
fresh bread that’s just like homemade. Crackly crust and soft inside, with real
taste. And it’s very inexpensive. The other day, we bought two loaves of
still-warm crusty bread for the equivalent of 75 Canadian cents each.
Olives are also ubiquitous and superb. Sometimes a bit
smoky, sometimes saltier, they come in so many taste variations and colours
(black, brown, shades of green) that it’s impossible to name your favourite.
Along with bread, they form the start to nearly every meal.
Here are our top 12 favourite Portuguese foods, so far:
1. Pastel de nata. I don’t even have a particular sweet tooth, but I love these little custard tarts, especially when warm and sprinkled with cinnamon. The story is that nuns invented them. People would bring baskets of eggs to the convents to pray for fertility, especially when a daughter was getting married. The nuns used the egg whites to starch their habits but had all the egg yolks left over. So they combined them with the sugar that had been discovered in the Americas to make the custard filling. When the crust is flaky and crumbles as you bite it – mmmm, that’s the best. 2. Little hot dogs. Gazela restaurant in Porto makes these unbelievably delicious little hot dogs that are nothing like any hot dog you’ve had before. Fresh bread a foot long, cheese, and sausage are slathered in olive oil and grilled on a panini press. A spicy sauce painted on top is optional. They’re sliced into small sections that are intended for sharing, but you’ll definitely want one all for yourself. Gazela is one of the few restaurants we ate at a second time. If you sit at the bar, you can watch these little gems being made.3. Scallops. Scallops are fresh from the sea and always served with the coral or roe – the reddish crescent shape around the white part (which is rarely served in North America). Prepared simply – grilled with garlic, olive oil and lemon – they turned out to be our favourite among all the seafood options here.4. Padron peppers. These little green peppers are roasted in olive oil and salt, and served as an appetizer. You eat them whole, minus the stem. Occasionally, you’ll get a spicy one – one of the few spicy Portuguese foods we encountered – but mostly they’re mild.5. Cod. The saying here is that there are 365 ways to cook cod (bacalhau), making it the national dish of Portugal. Although we’ve seen it fresh in fish markets, most Portuguese apparently prefer to buy the dried, salted version and reconstitute it, harking back to the 1500s when Portuguese fishermen began catching cod off Newfoundland. They dried and salted it to keep during the long voyage home. Today, Portugal gets most of its cod from Norway. We tried cod in many ways – grilled, in a salad, in an empanada, in stews, mixed with potatoes in a casserole, and in fritters – and liked them all.6. Sardines. We get tired of eating in restaurants all the time, so we often go to a market or grocery store to buy bread, cheese, sliced meats, a pepper or carrot, and fruit for our own picnic. After sampling sardines in restaurants, we quickly added them to our go-to easy lunch options. Canned sardines are easier to eat than their larger grilled cousins, which taste good but wrestling with all the bones is a pain. The bones in canned sardines are tiny and soft enough to eat.
7. Caldo verde. This soup is offered in just about every restaurant as a starter. Shredded kale is the star, and nearly every home garden or market garden has it growing on tall stalks. Potatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and salt are the other key ingredients. Just before serving, one slice of chorizo sausage is placed on top.
8. Presunto. Portugal’s cured ham is similar to Spain’s jamon or Italy’s prosciutto. We found presunto smokier and not as fatty as its cousins, although all versions are delectable. Presunto is presented on charcuterie boards, in sandwiches and even in potato chips!9. Seafood stew. It’s done many ways but all have been delicious, with clams, mussels, shrimp, cockles, and scallops, usually in a tomato-based sauce. Sometimes, a white fish such as cod or monkfish is added.10. Feijoada. I had always thought of this bean stew – cooked slowly with various cuts of pork and sausage – as a Brazilian food but it was, of course, introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese. We found it in Porto in a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a back street. We were the only tourists – the rest of the diners were workmen on their two-hour lunch break.11. Black sausage. We tried black sausage on a ‘tabua’ – a charcuterie board – and it was surprisingly delicious spread on bread. Tabuas are good for trying various cheeses, presunto and patés. 12. Chicken soup. Despite the chicken foot in Bill’s bowl (and the neck and gizzard in mine), the flavour was rich and delicious. I suspect it was simmered for a long time.
We also tried other typical Portuguese foods that didn’t make our top 12:
1. Octopus. Bill had it grilled and I had it chopped finely in a salad a few times. It’s meaty and surprisingly not rubbery, but doesn’t have all that much taste. Bill feels uneasy eating octopus because they are such intelligent animals.2. Francesinha. Imagine a croque monsieur had a fling with poutine. This gluttonish concoction is constructed using two thick slices of bread for the framework, and stuffed with steak, ham, and sausage. Then it’s “iced” with melted cheese and smothered in a beer and tomato sauce. Sometimes a fried egg is added to the top. Served with a pile of fries, it’s rich and difficult to finish, although Bill mastered it. He scored it low when taste is divided by calories.
3. Ovo moles. This pastry – a specialty in the town of Aveiro – was also invented by nuns to use up egg yolks. The creamy inside is nice – not too sweet – but the outside was slightly crunchy. I thought it tasted like a bland ice cream cone, and later found out it’s supposed to resemble the host wafer used in communion. Aveiro is so proud of its ovo moles that it erected a sculpture, showing the typical shapes of sea shells (as well as barrels and boats).
4. Chanfana. We need to give this lamb or goat stewed with red wine another chance. I tried a toasted sandwich with lamb chanfana in it and it was good, but not fantastic. I want to try it with goat.
5. Lanche. Also called empanadas, these are heavy pastry turnovers filled with chicken or tuna. We found them rather bland.
We still have time to try these other Portuguese
specialties:
Percebes (goose barnacles). I fear we may have missed the season for them, but we’ll keep looking.
Piri piri chicken. This is a specialty of the Algarve region, where we’re headed next.
Leitao (roast suckling piglet). It’s supposed to be somewhat like pulled pork only better.
Tripe. We’ve seen it on a few menus but haven’t yet had the guts to try it.
I love custard tarts. I used to make them. You will love Piri Piri GREAT. Oh how I wish I
was there. My mother, Bill’s grandmother used to do Tripe. Depends on how it is cooked
and what is smothered on it !!!!!!!
Keep on enjoying, I can’t wait until I hear about the Algarve, in particular, Carvoeiro.
Lots of good restaurants there
Love Pat
Everything looks so delicious! Yumm! Thanks for sharing such wonderful meals with us – especially the scallops, my favourite seafood.
Now, on to Spain to try their fabulous dishes?
Keep those wonderful photos and your delightful commentary coming! Miss you both.
Loved reading about your culinary journey! I can definitely relate to the bit about taking a chance and dropping Google translate. I pointed to one of many different options when I wanted to try the leitao….and ended up with the poor piglet’s HEAD cut up on my plate. Ears and all. I just couldn’t….
Kathryn and bill… we loved the piri piri chicken in the algarve. The countryside along the coast is wonderful. You guys must have the best toned legs in Portugal
Sheila
Oh man, presunto sounds amazing. Can you bring some back?? 🙂
Custard tarts make life worth living!
I love custard tarts. I used to make them. You will love Piri Piri GREAT. Oh how I wish I
was there. My mother, Bill’s grandmother used to do Tripe. Depends on how it is cooked
and what is smothered on it !!!!!!!
Keep on enjoying, I can’t wait until I hear about the Algarve, in particular, Carvoeiro.
Lots of good restaurants there
Love Pat
I didn’t know piri piri was a Portugal thing. I’m learning so much reading your posts. Keep ’em coming.
How wonderful to eat your way through Portugal now that you have burned all of those calories cycling.
I remember being served pastel de nata for breakfast while in Portugal. Yummy! There are also some tasty ones in Toronto.
You will enjoy the Piri Piri chicken and the Algarve region. Tres belle.
Enjoy your time. What a wonderful experience you are both having.
Everything looks so delicious! Yumm! Thanks for sharing such wonderful meals with us – especially the scallops, my favourite seafood.
Now, on to Spain to try their fabulous dishes?
Keep those wonderful photos and your delightful commentary coming! Miss you both.
Loved reading about your culinary journey! I can definitely relate to the bit about taking a chance and dropping Google translate. I pointed to one of many different options when I wanted to try the leitao….and ended up with the poor piglet’s HEAD cut up on my plate. Ears and all. I just couldn’t….
Happy continued travels you too!
Kathryn and bill… we loved the piri piri chicken in the algarve. The countryside along the coast is wonderful. You guys must have the best toned legs in Portugal
Sheila