Petiscos and other cold cuts
While everyone is familiar with Spanish tapas, Portugal has nothing to envy its big neighbor in this respect, offering delicious little bites and starters known as " petiscos ". The menu features many seafood products, such as the unmissable pataniscas de bacalhau, cod croquettes with herbs. Toasted bread(pao) is served with a creamy pasta de sardinhas (sardine mousse). You'll also find salata de polvo or marinated octopus salad, as well as berbigão (cockles) or amêijoas (clams) simply cooked with a little garlic and olive oil.
On the land side, moelas à portuguesaare poultry gizzards in a thick tomato sauce, served with bread. Figado de porco grelhado are simply cubes of grilled pork liver. Ovos de cebolada com tomate, or boiled eggs, are served with a tomato sauce and candied onions. Peixinhos da horta are the Portuguese equivalent of tempura. There are several types of croquettes, such as bolinho de feijão branco with white beans. Bolinhos de chouriço, more like chorizo cakes, are also very popular.
Products of excellence
Charcuterie in Portugal is a serious business. So let's take a look at the inevitable presunto, the Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish jamón. Although quite similar to Spanish chorizo, Portuguese chouriço is sometimes smoked and can even be cooked, as in the case of the highly reputed chouriço mouro dos Açores. Chouriço de sangue or morcela is a kind of black pudding flavored with cumin and cloves. In the Azores, it is eaten in the form of a bite stuck on a toothpick with pineapple, known simply as morcela com ananás. Linguiça is a pork sausage seasoned with garlic and paprika and smoked, whilealheira can be made from a variety of meats (usually pork, veal, duck, chicken, even quail or rabbit).
Thanks to their mild climate, the Azores have lush, green pastures for much of the year. This is ideal for cows and sheep, which produce high-quality milk used to make a variety of cheeses(queijo). In Portugal, however, most cheese preparations come in the form of tommes. These include, of course, queijo de São Jorge and queijo do Pico, two cow's milk cheeses that have held PDO status since 1996.
Other products include IGP beef(carne dos Açores) and a wide range of fruit and vegetables. The archipelago's mild climate is ideal for the cultivation ofananás dos Açores - a small, round fruit - and maracujá de São Miguel (passion fruit), not to mention mel dos Açores, all of which have PDO status. Last but not least, pimenta da terre is a red pepper which, when puréed, goes very well with fresh cheese.
The essentials of Portuguese cuisine
A meal in Portugal often begins with soup. The very rustic sopa de pedra (coconut beans, chorizo, bacon and pig's ears simmered in a casserole) is a classic, as are sopa de camarão (shrimp soup), sopa de grão (chickpea soup), sopa de puré de feijão (red bean purée soup) and sopa de cação (light fish soup), which are also very popular.
Of course, it's impossible not to mention the famous cod or bacalhau, which can be enjoyed in a thousand and one ways. The main cod dishes are bacalhau com natas (cod brandade), bacalhau à brás (crumbled cod with mashed potatoes, onions, parsley, scrambled eggs and black olives), the simple bacalhau assado (oven-roasted cod) or bacalhau à Gomes de Sá (cod and potato salad with hard-boiled eggs). Or try dourada à portuguesa (oven-roasted sea bream with tomatoes and onions), arroz de tamboril (rice with monkfish and tomato),peixe escabeche (slices of fish in escabeche) or caldeirada (stewed fish with shellfish). As for seafood, try choco frito (fried cuttlefish), lulas com camarão (squid and shrimp in tomato sauce), favas com chocos (cuttlefish with broad beans) or lingueirão à bulhão pato (razor clams with garlic and coriander).
But that doesn't stop the Portuguese from preparing meat to perfection. In fact, they prefer it melted and simmered, rather than rare.Ensopada do cabrito (kid stew), frango assado (grilled chicken with paprika), ensopado de borrego (lamb stew) and arroz de pato (a kind of duck paella with chouriço) are just a few examples. Common in bistros, bitoque is a complete plate comprising steak, fried egg, French fries and salad. Pork lovers will love Portugal for its many pork-based dishes, such as cozido a portuguesa (pot-au-feu), feijoada (a black bean cassoulet where the duck is replaced by smoked sausage and pork) or, more simply, leitão (baked suckling pig). More delicate are lombinhos de porco com castanhas (filet mignon with chestnuts).
There are also mixed dishes such as carne de porco alentejana(pork stew with clams), carne de porco com lulas (pork with squid), amêijoas na cataplana (shellfish casserole with chorizo) and chicharro no forno (fish with bacon and potatoes).
Specialties of the Azorean cuisine
But in addition to common dishes from all over Portugal, there are a host of specialties unique to the Azores. Famous dishes include cozido das furnas, a complete stew (sausage, black pudding, various meats, cabbage, carrots, turnips, etc.) traditionally cooked in the geysers(furnas) found on the island of São Miguel. Another rustic dish, the soup of the Holy Spirit or sopas de Espírito Santo, originating on the island of Terceira, consists of a mixture of beef, poultry, marrow bones and potatoes, all seasoned with a little mint and topped with toasted bread. It's served at Whitsuntide. Alternatively, try the heartytorresmos em molho de fígado, a stew of confit meat and pork liver. Another classic,alcatra, is a tasty stew of beef, sometimes fish, cooked slowly in a clay cauldron, in a sauce of bacon, onions, garlic, bay leaves, chillies and wine. Finally, coelho de molho de vilão or " rogue rabbit ", a dish of roast rabbit accompanied by a garlic and chilli vinegar sauce.
Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Azores offer gourmets a multitude of seafood products. For the more adventurous, try perceve, lapas and cracas (barnacles), three mollusks with delicate flesh that may not look very appetizing. They are usually poached and served with a wedge of lemon. Octopus is cooked in many different ways. You can enjoy polvo à açoriana, octopus simmered with potatoes, wine and a hint of chili pepper, or polvo à moda das Lages, cooked with tomato and red wine. Alternatively, enjoy a guisados de bacalhau (cod stew) or a richly spiced caldeiradas de peixe (fish bouillabaisse).
Sweets and hot drinks
It's impossible to mention Portuguese pastry without mentioning the more than famous pastéis de nata. For those who don't already know, these little flans consist of a very crispy puff pastry shell filled with an egg cream, flavored with vanilla, lemon or cinnamon. This recipe, whose success has spread far and wide, seems to have originated in the 19th century.
Of course, there are many other sweets that are unique to the Azores. Massa sovada is a term used to describe various types of sweet brioche pastry. It is a common Christmas and Easter specialty for both Azoreans and mainland Portuguese. For Easter, it is often baked with hard-boiled eggs in the center of the bread. Malasadas are round balls of dough that are fried and rolled in granulated sugar, almost like a doughnut, said to have originated on the island of São Miguel. The bolo lêvedo resembles English muffins.
Alternatively, you can enjoy Vila Franca do Campo's queijadas, dense, creamy individual fresh-cheese cakes, generously dusted with powdered sugar. Thealfenim, a sugar paste mixed with water and a little vinegar, takes the form, in the skilled hands of the confectioners, of a world of sweet fantasy reproducing flowers, doves, swans, rabbits and an original souvenir.
Thanks to their particularly mild climate, the Azores have one of the only tea plantations in Europe. It is managed by the Chá Gorreana factory in São Miguel, which produces both green and black tea. Coffee lovers will not be outdone. On Fajã dos Vimes, in São Jorge, you'll find the only coffee plantation in Europe, where you can taste Café Nunes.
Alcoholic beverages
Verdelho de Pico was an aperitif wine whose fame extended as far as the court of the Russian Tsar. It is assumed that the grape varieties were imported from Sicily or Madeira, and planted first by Franciscans and Carmelites in the 16th century, then by Jesuits in the following century. At the peak of production in the early 18th century, some 30,000 barrels and almost 15 million liters were exported; but an epidemic ravaged the plants a little later, and isabella grapes were planted, whose strong aroma gives vinho de cheiro, which can be drunk just about anywhere. Graciosa also produces wine: terras da conde can be drunk as a red or white wine, but also as an aperitif or digestif to round off a meal. Another cooperative produces pedras brancas, an excellent white wine.
In São Miguel, you can enjoy fruity, sweet pineapple or maracuja (passion fruit) liqueurs, while a number of caseiras (homemade) liqueurs will keep you at the table: blackberry liqueur, amora and angelica, arco-iris (rainbow) liqueur made with fennel and coriander seeds, or oriental (with vanilla). A little everywhere, people make their own wine (with a low alcohol content) and a very strong artisanal brandy,agua ardente, tasted by fishermen with a coffee after a sea outing. You can also try Graciosa brandy. As for beer, try the Especial, very good and very local, since it's mainly found in São Miguel.
