Portuguese Menu Wishes: Happy New Year!

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I´d like to wish all Portuguese Menu readers, foodie fellows in my blogroll and visitors a Prosperous New Year. Sweet Celebrations for all.
Cheers!

Portuguese Traditional Sweets: "Filhóses & Azevias"

Hi.
Filhós and Azevias, or Empanadilhas as they´re called in south region, are Portuguese traditional Christmas sweets. The fries in the picture were done by me. The original recipe and the tips were passed to me by mother-in-law:


Filhóses Enroladas


Azevias / Empanadilhas

I will share this recipes in future posts. I took enough pictures to make a step-by- step guide to do Azevias.
For now, I´m off to my kitchen. I need to prepare other delish Portuguese Menus for New Year´s celebration :)

Perfect "Suspiros"

Hi.
Although my last Suspiros didn´t look very good, they vanished in the same day I made them. Today, I did them again and they looked so beautiful that I decided to post some pictures:











Suspiros are very easy to do, the secret is baking them in very low temperature.
Lynda, a fellow blogger, commented that Suspiros reminded her Merengues.
In fact, she´s entirely right, Suspiro´s dough is used to make Merengues but there´s a small difference between them. In a near future, I will post about this topic.
See you soon.

Changing Portuguese Menu Look

Hi.
New Year is arriving, as we say in Portugal: "New Year, New Life".
New life means renovation, just what I need in Portuguese Menu. I feel like renovating the way it looks.
I´d like to inform visitors and readers that I´m changing the layout. I hope I can finish this change soon. Thanks for understanding.
Happy Holidays!

30/12/08 - Update:

For now, I´m done. In the future, I´d like to find a new header and maybe add another background. I still have some widgets to upload, a task that I will do after the New Year´s celebration.
See you soon.

Portuguese "Suspiros"

What you see in the picture above is a traditional Portuguese sweet, called "Suspiros", ready to go to my oven.
Suspiros are very easy to do, the secret is in the oven time and temperature.

Ingredients for 8 Suspiros:

~ 2 egg whites
~ 1 cup of sugar
~ 1 teaspoon of butter

Directions:

Beat two egg whites so they get thicker. Add sugar (at least, one cup) and keep beating until you have a consistent type of dough.
I use a spoon to model the dough in circles, directly in the oven tray, and I separate each other so they don´t glue. The oven tray was previosly covered with cooking paper and a bit of butter.
Suspiros take around 10/15 minutes in 150ºC oven(depending on their size). Suspiro´s dough grows while cooking and becomes golden. When ready, they looked like this:



Yummie, but very caloric :)
Although we love Suspiros, I only do them once or twice a year.
See you.

Pumpkin & Carrot Purée

Hi. Hope you all had a good Christmas.
Mine was very good, TG.
Today´s recipe is a warm vegetable soup for the cold days we´re having here in Portugal. It´s one of my soup´s recipes and I like to call it Pumpkin & Carrot Purée. This soup is healthy and very easy to do:

Ingredients:



~ Potatoes (4, small)
~ Onions (2, medium)
~ Carrots (4, medium)
~ Pumpkin (1 slice)
~ 1 Table spoon Olive oil
~ Water and salt
~ Boiled eggs (1/2 for each plate)

Directions:

Cook all vegetables in salted water with half of the olive oil. You can use a pressure pan. If you like thick purée, use just enough water to cover all vegetables.
While the vegetables are cooking boil some eggs. I use only half for each plate.
Blend the vegs. Add the rest of the olive oil.
Serve with the eggs:



Sometimes, instead of adding boiled eggs I use fresh coriander. Coriander contrasts with the sweet of carrots and pumpkin and adds an excellent taste to this purée.
Bom Apetite!

Portuguese Menu Wishes: Merry Christmas!

I´d like to wish all Portuguese Menu readers and visitors:
Merry Christmas!
Lots of Peace, Health and Happiness.

Portuguese Christmas Eve Traditions

Bolo Rei - King Cake

Hi everyone.
Most Portuguese are Christians, so we celebrate Christmas eve in family. Traditionally, we have soups such as "Caldo Verde", "Canja", and "Sopa de Legumes".
For main course we have Codfish with vegetables, Octopus, other types of fish and seafood.
Traditional sweets are fruit cakes "Bolo Rei" (picture above), Portuguese Sweet Rice, different types of fried dough, such as "Sonhos", "Filhós", "Azevias" and many others.
This Christmas I will be in the kitchen too. I hope to take some pictures to post here.
See you soon.

Image Credits: http://www.petiscos.com/smf/index.php?topic=13792.0

Portuguese Lamb in the Oven

Portuguese lamb in the oven is one of my favorite meat dishes and it´s a classic in our Christmas holidays.
Lamb dishes are traditional and very appreciated in Portugal. You can find different ways of cooking lamb (stews, grilled, in the oven, etc) in most good restaurants of all Portuguese regions.
Today, I´m posting my recipe.

The secret of this dish is the meat quality. I prefer fresh lamb from Alentejo region and I never froze it.
Before cooking, I season the lamb and put it in the fridge for 12 hours.
I use garlic, ground sweet pepper, bay leaves, lemmon, salt and white wine:





To cook, I put the lamb in the oven tray and surround the meat with potatoes (1/4 or small size).
I cover the meat with slices of onion and tomatoe. I also add fresh parsley, a bit more of ground sweet pepper, black pepper (very little), olive oil and salt:




I cook it in 220º oven until the meat is well done.
While roasting, I add white wine to the sauce and cover the meat with it. This way the meat doesn´t dry much. I repeat this process two or three times.
I like to serve this dish with rice or a mixed salad:





Bom Apetite!

Portuguese Roasted Chestnuts

Hi.
Recently, a Portuguese Menu reader asked how I roast chestnuts.
I buy roasted chestnuts from street sellers, like in the picture above.
They use a special pan with small holes in the bottom. They stab the chestnuts, add salt and put it to roast, around 20 minutes.
A curious fact about Portuguese roasted chesnuts bought from street sellers:
Sellers normally make packets to sell the chestnuts using newspapers or phone books. You can buy one of this packets with a dozen chestnuts or half dozen. One dozen can cost 1.50 or 2.00 Euros, depending where you buy them.
I never tried using the oven to roast chestnuts. The main reason is because my oven is electric, if I had a barbecue I would sure roast some chestnuts there.

At home, I do like this:

~ 500 gr of medium size chestnuts
~ Water, just enough to cover
~ 2 tablespoons of sugar
~ 1 tablespoon of Aniz Herbs - Erva Doce

Wash the chestnuts well. Stab them, a small cut is enough.
Put the chestnuts in a pan, cover with water, add the sugar and herbs. Put the pan cooking in medium stove and mix it once in a while.
After 20/30 minutes cooking they should be ready. Remove the water and serve while they´re hot.
Bom Apetite!

Picture: By Rufino

Portuguese Chestnuts

In Portugal, Chestnuts are typical during fall and winter.
This sweet Chestnuts you can see in the picture are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the nuts this trees produce.
In USA they´re called "Spanish Chestnut" and in Portugal "Castanhas".
We use this type of nuts in cakes, soups (north region) and meat dishes. We also have them boiled with aniz herbs, roasted with salt, dried (Castanhas Piladas) or just plain.
In Portugual you can find plenty of this trees in north region, where the weather is colder. Portuguese Chestnuts are really sweet and, like sweet potatoes, they´re very good to use both in pastry and main courses.
A good Sunday.

Codfish With Cream: My Recipe

Hi everyone.
In a recent post, I explained how I prepare codfish before cooking. Today, I´m posting my favorite codfish recipe, called "Bacalhau com Natas" or Codfish with Cream.
Bacalhau com Natas is comon in Portugal but I make a few additions to the original recipe. I add boiled eggs in slices, cheese and oregano, making it taste different from the restaurant´s recipe.

Ingredients:

~ 400 gr of Codfish
~ Potatoes (5/6 medium)
~ 1 onion
~ 1 Clove Garlic
~ 6/8 slices of Cheese
~ 250 ml cream
~ 250 ml Béchamel sauce
~ 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
~ 3 Boiled eggs
~ Oregano

Directions:

To prepare this recipe the codfish must be ready to cook. If you buy dry salted codfish, before cooking all you have to do is put it in water for 24hours.
Cook the codfish in water, don´t add salt, it has enough. Let it cool and then prepare it, removing the fish skin and bones.
Peel potatoes, cut them in slices or small cubes, add some salt and fry in hot oil. Reserve.
Chop the onion and garlic into a cooking pan, add the olive oil and fry for 2 minutes. Add the codfish and cook it for 3 minutes, mixing well.
Use an oven tray to cook the rest of the recipe. First, put the codfish, add potatoes, béchamel sauce, cream, and slices of egg. Top it with cheese and a bit of oregano.
Cook in hot oven (220º) for 30 minutes:





After the cheese melts it´s ready to serve.
I like to serve this codfish recipe with black olives and lettuce salad.
Bom Apetite!

Sweet Almond´s Cake

Hi.
Some months ago, I posted this recipe in My Countryhome blog. Now, I´m adding it to Portuguese Menu too.
I make this cake with the sweet almonds from the trees we have in our plot.
It´s a very easy recipe of a delicious cake. Just mix all the ingredients, bake, and it´s done!


Portuguese Almond Cake

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
200 gr Sugar
200 gr Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Oil
1 Cup of grated Almonds
(with peel)

Directions:

Beat the 4 eggs with the sugar, until they´re creamy. Add the milk, beat again, and then add the oil. Continue to beat and gently add the fluor, previously mixed with the baking powder.
For last, add the almond, and beat for more 2/3 minutes, until you see little bubbles. Remember that if you grate well the almonds you´ll never notice the peel.
Bake at 190º C, for 45 minutes.
Serve with any topping or decorate as you like. In my opinion, this cake is great with "egg´s sweet": " Doce de Ovos", as we call it in Portugal.

Happy Baking.