“There is only one Portuguese banquet which surpasses all Paris dinners, but which surpasses it entirely: it’s the Christmas dinner in our Minho lands.”
Ramalho Ortigão
Select the recipe and enjoy!
Traditional dishes...
"Caldo Verde" (Green Broth Soup)
Ingredients for 4
500 g / 1.1 pounds of potatoes 1 small meat chouriço (meat sausage) 1 or 2 garlic cloves 4 tbsp of olive oil
200 g (7,05 oz) of collard greens cut into very fine julienne Salt to taste
Preparation
Peel the potatoes and bake them in 2 litres of water with the chouriço and the garlic cloves. Mash the potatoes once they’re cooked. Bring them to heat In the meantime, wash the collard greens several times (until the water is no longer green). Add the greens to the boiling mash potatoes. Add half the olive oil and leave the collard greens cooking. When it’s time to serve, rectify the flavour and add the remaining olive oil. Serve with sliced chouriço. * The chouriço can be replaced by salpicão (pickled pork sausage).
4 slices of codfish 5 dl (2 cups) of olive oil 2 garlic cloves 1 Kg (2.2 pounds) of potatoes
1 tsp of paprika 2 cloves 3 onions Salt and ground white pepper to taste.
Preparation
Steep the codfish in water for 48 hours, changing the water several times. Dry the slices and fry them in hot olive oil. Take out the codfish keeping it warm. Peel and chop the potatoes in thick slices and then fry them in the olive oil used to fry the codfish. In the remaining olive oil, fry the sliced onions, the finely chopped garlic cloves, one bay leaf broken into pieces, cloves and paprika. Put the codfish slices in a large plate, lay the potatoes around the codfish, pour the sauce you have prepared and the sliced onion on top of the codfish.
"Polvo Malandrinho à moda do Minho" (Moist Octopus Rice Minho way)
Ingredients for 4
1 kg (2.2 pounds) of octopus 100 g (0.22 pounds) of meat chouriço (blood sausage) 1 dl (½ cup) of olive oil 2 onions 2 garlic cloves Parsley
1 bay leaf 1 dl ( ½ cup) of white wine 400 g (14,1 oz) of rice Black olives Salt and pepper to taste.
Preparation
Clean the octopus and take out all the gut. Pound it with a wooden mallet to soften. Clean it carefully in washing-water and put it in a pot with boiling water. Add an onion to cook with the rest. After boiling (check if it is smooth), cut the octopus into small pieces and reserve the boiling water (rightly strained). In a pan prepare a stew with the olive oil, the crushed garlic and onion. When the onion starts to brown add the bay leaf (without the stem) and the parsley. Then add the wine and 3,5 parts of water for each part of rice. When it starts to boil add the rice. Season the food with salt and pepper to taste, add the slices of smoked sausage and stir all together well and let it cook in low heat for 15 minutes. When you remove it from the heat, keep it covered for a few minutes and remove the parsley and the bay leaf. Then, add the cut octopus, stir and serve it, in a pre-heated recipient, ornamented with some stems of parsley and the olives.
"Arroz de Pato à moda de Braga" (Duck Rice Braga way)
Ingredients for 6
1 duck 500 g. /1.10 pounds of rice 250 g./0.55 pounds of smoked ham 1 smoked sausage ½ pork’s ear
1 tbsp of butter Parsley 1 lemon 1 clove Salt and pepper to taste.
Preparation
Prepare the duck and the pork’s ear and bring them to heat in abundant water seasoned with salt and pepper, along with the smoked ham, smoked sausage, parsley and the clove. Remove the foam that forms with the boiling. When the meat is cooked, remove it without disjointing the duck and let the broth cool down. With a spoon, remove part of the fat that forms on the surface of the /broth and then strain it. Measure the rice after washed and dried. Put the broth in a pan (twice the volume of the rice) and as soon as it starts to boil, add the rice and the lemon juice and check the seasoning. Let the rice open a little. Put it in a flat clay bowl, typical in the region, and put it in the well heated oven. When the broth evaporates, plunge the duck into the rice, previously buttered up, and leave the rice to boil and the duck to roast. Before serving, cut up the duck, removing all the bones and cutting the meat in slices. You may also cut the smoked ham and the pork’s ear in pieces and the smoked sausage in slices. Arrange the meat alternated with the rice. Serve it really hot. You may wrap the clay bowl in a linen towel. It is accompanied with oranges cut in slices.
800 g. /1.76 pounds of pork’s leg without skin, but with fat 3,5 dl. (1 ½ cups) of white vinho verde (green whine) 3 tbsp of lard 4 garlic cloves 2 bay leafs 1 dsp of paprika
Salt and pepper to taste. 20 roasted chestnuts 350 g (12,3 oz) of “belouras” or “bolachos” 350 g (12,3 oz)of hog’s bowels sprinkled with flour 100 g (3,5 oz). of pork liver 100 g (3,5 oz) of boiled blood
Preparation
Cut the pork’s meat in cubes of 10 cm, and leave it to marinate for 2 hours with the wine, the smashed garlic cloves, salt, pepper and the bay leaf. Bring them to heat (preferably in an iron pan) and let it boil in high heat until the wine evaporates. Add the lard and, in gentle heat, let the “rojões” boil until they get really brown. Then add to the sauce, the paprika dissolved in a little Green wine. Remove a part of the lard where the “rojões” where boiled to a frying pan and gradually fry the hog’s bowels sprinkled with flour (see next) cut into 3 to 5 cm.(1,18 to 1,97 in) pieces, the “belouras” cut in slices of ½ cm (0,20 in) and the liver and the blood cut in slices. While these ingredients are frying, add the “rojões”, to keep everything warm. Also add the peeled roasted chestnuts. Serve it in a plate with little brown potatoes and ornamented with lemon slices and parsley.
“Tripa Enfarinhada”
Wash the fresh bowels and then, steep them overnight, in water with some lemon slices. Change the water several times. Once they are dried, turned inside out and passed through maize flour seasoned with pepper and cumin. Tie one of the extremities and turn them back again to the inside. Put them in boiling water for a quick boiling. After they are boiled, fry them in lard and cut them as you wish.
250 g (8,8 oz) of pork’s liver 250 g (8,8 oz)of pork’s lungs 250 g (8,8 oz)of pork’s throat 250 g (8,8 oz)of pork’s heart 1 pork back bone, well cured
250 g (8,8 oz)of beef 250 g (8,8 oz)of boiled pork’s blood 2 bowls of sifted maize flour (around250 g (8,8 oz)) Salt and cumin to taste
Preparation
Bring to heat a pan with water and, when it starts to boil, add the meat, season it with salt and let it boil until the chicken separates itself. Once the meat is cooked, remove it and add the flour to the soup so it forms a pap not too thick, the blood and a part of the boiled liver (crush by hand), the meat previously shred and the cumin. Stir all together well and let it boil. Serve the “papas” in bowls, sprinkled with more cumin. The quantities of flour and meat are optional, but good “papas de sarrabulho” must contain all these ingredients.