What to eat Madeira? culinary specialties and gastronomy

If everyone knows Spanish tapas, Portugal has nothing to envy its big neighbour on this point and offers delicious little bites and starters called petiscos. The term comes from the Portuguese petiscar which means "to have a snack". They can be eaten at any time of the day, even though they are generally a form of aperitif, like tapas, which are eaten in tascas - understand tavern - or even more precisely in a petisqueira.

There are many seafood products on the menu, such as the unavoidable pataniscas de bacalhau, cod croquettes with herbs, while the ovas em azeite de alhos, more surprising, come in the form of small pockets of fish eggs sautéed in olive oil with lots of garlic. A little toast (pao) is served with a creamy pasta de sardinhas (sardine mousse). There is also the 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 in portuguesa are chicken gizzards in a thick tomato sauce that is eaten with bread. The figado de porco grelhado are simply small cubes of grilled pork liver. The ovos de cebolada com tomate are a kind of egg-cocotte served with a tomato sauce with onion confit. Peixinhos da horta, which could be translated as "small fish from the garden", do not contain an ounce of fish, but come in the form of green bean fritters. It is assumed that they are the origin of tempura, introduced to Japan by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries. There are several types of croquettes such as the bolinhos de feijão branco with white beans. Bolinhos de chouriço, which look more like chorizo cakes, are also very popular.

A meal in Portugal often begins with soup. The country has a wide variety of soups. Inherited from the peasant tradition, it is eaten everywhere, from the greatest restaurants to the simplest, and not only in winter. 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 feijão (red bean purée soup) and sopa de cação (light fish soup), which are also very popular.

In Madeira as well as in the rest of the Portuguese territory, fish and seafood are legion. Of course, it is impossible not to mention the famous cod or bacalhau. It may be a bit cliché, but the Portuguese used to charter boats to go fishing for it as far as the North Atlantic on the borders of Canada and Norway. Good quality cod must be white and light. If it's yellowish and a little heavy, it hasn't been dried properly. In short, cod is a serious business in Portugal and is eaten in a thousand and one ways. The main cod dishes are bacalhau com natas (the famous cod brandade au gratin), bacalhau à brás (cod crumbled with mashed potatoes, onions and parsley, all bound with scrambled eggs and decorated with black olives), the simple bacalhau assado (oven-roasted cod) or the bacalhau in Gomes de Sá (a cod and potato salad with hard-boiled eggs). More surprisingly, the bacalhau linguas (cod tongues) are fried and served with an olive oil sauce flavoured with garlic and parsley. Other fish-based recipes include dourada à portuguesa (baked sea bream with tomatoes and onions), arroz de tamboril (rice with monkfish and tomato), peixe escabeche (slices of fish in escabeche) or caldeirada (fish stewed with shellfish). For seafood, try choco frito (fried cuttlefish), lulas com camarão (squid and shrimp in tomato sauce), favas com chocos (cuttlefish with beans) or lingueirão à bulhão pato (garlic and coriander knives).

But that doesn't stop the Portuguese from preparing the meat to perfection. In fact, they prefer it to melt and simmer, rather than bleed. Lebre à portuguesa (Portuguese style hare stew), 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 consisting of a steak, a fried egg, fries and a salad. Pork lovers will love Portugal for its many pork-based dishes such as cozido à portuguesa (pot-au-feu), feijoada (a cassoulet of black beans where the duck is replaced by smoked sausage and pork) or simply leitão (baked suckling pig). More delicate are the lombinhos de porco com castanhas (chestnut filet mignon). As previously mentioned, chouriços, morcela and other enchidos (sausages) are often grilled on the barbecue.

While Madeira is home to most of the great classics of Portuguese cuisine, there are also specialities that are native to the island and are not eaten much in the rest of the country.

One example is the espetada madeirense, which comes in the form of beef skewers that have the particularity of being made of laurel wood, giving the meat a unique taste. The beef is sometimes replaced by octopus. Picadinho is a beef or veal stew seasoned with garlic, bay leaves and tomato purée, then simmered for a long time with wine and finally served with French fries. The cozido madeirense is similar to a stew, but it is made with semi-salted pork shank, sausages and whole vegetables, including sweet potatoes, carrots and leeks. Unlike Spanish cocido, it does not contain chickpeas. Carne de vinha d'alhos is a traditional dish served at Christmas that is prepared with pork, white wine, vinegar, garlic and laurel and left to marinate for a long time before braising the meat. It is also the origin of the Indo-Portuguese stew called vindaloo.

Of course, Madeira's cuisine includes several fish specialties such as chicharro, a small fish that abounds around the Island and for this reason has played an important role in Madeira's gastronomy over the years. It can be eaten fried, grilled or baked. Lapas or patelles in English are a type of seafood known for its conical shell. They are removed from the rocks and simply baked in the oven with a little garlic and butter. But perhaps the most surprising speciality of Madeira is the peixe espada com banana. The peixe espada or swordfish is usually breaded and then fried and served with a grilled banana and sometimes passion fruit pulp. While this may sound a bit silly, in reality the unsweetened banana and the acidic juice of the passion fruit blend surprisingly well with the swordfish flesh.

Many Portuguese pastries have been created in monasteries since the Middle Ages. Indeed, Portugal was known to be an important producer of eggs, mainly between the 18th and 19th centuries, as egg whites were exported to be used in the production of white wine, to purify the alcohol and filter all suspended particles. Winegrowers thus found themselves with a huge surplus of egg yolks and donated them to convents. So we find the specialties with sometimes rather comical names such as barriga de freira (nun's belly), papo de anjo (double angel chin), toucinho do céu (bacon from paradise) and other baba de camelo (camel's slime). But of course it is impossible to talk about Portuguese pastry without mentioning the more than famous pastéis de nata. For those who don't know yet, these little pies consist of a very crispy puff pastry shell topped with an egg cream flavoured with vanilla, lemon or cinnamon. This recipe, whose success has blithely surpassed the country's borders, seems to have been created in the 19th century. In Madeira specifically, it is made into a passion fruit flavoured version called pasteis de maracujá. Other desserts include the bolo de mel da Madeira, a cake served at Christmas in Madeira which is made with walnuts and sugar cane molasses among other ingredients, which gives it its very dark colour. It can also be flavoured with a dash of Madeira wine. Traditionally it is not cut but torn into pieces with the hands. You can also try the bolo de arroz, a rice flour muffin, pudim flan, egg and caramel flan, queijada, a soft fresh cheese cake, or the torta de laranja, a delicious orange roll cake. Finally, maracuja pudim is also a type of flan, very popular on the island, flavoured with passion fruit pulp.

If the Portuguese are often cited as one of the world's biggest wine consumers, it is because the country is not short of choices in this area. Red, white, rosé, sparkling, sparkling, mutated and even "green wines", there is something for everyone. But of course, what wine better symbolizes the island than Madeira? This prestigious sweet wine, much appreciated, like port, by the English, was originally created by accident by mixing wine and - for better conservation - sugar cane brandy. The alcohol thus produced was so popular that it suddenly met with unprecedented enthusiasm, particularly in Great Britain but also in the United States, then a British colony, as well as in Russia and France. There are four types: malvasia (sweet), bual (half sweet), verdelho (half dry) and sercial (dry).

However, other Portuguese wines, such as the uncontrollable port, can be easily found on the island. This mutated wine - by adding grape brandy - can be branco, i.e. white, and sometimes extra seco (to be drunk very chilled). The red port, depending on its age, will be ruby, dark red, or tawny, amber. Otherwise the wines of the Douro are remarkable, as are the wines of the Setúbal region, known for the famous moscatel, a very sweet, cooked muscatel wine, while the wines of the Alentejo, from the south of the country, are denser with a lot of body. Among the wines of the Bairrada, there are very good reds (baga variety) as well as excellent espumante (sparkling wine). Finally, the green wine or vinho verde does not get its name from the colour of the wine, but from its youth. Partially fermented, it is only 8° to 11°, compared to 13-14° for a conventional wine.