IN LOVE WITH LISBON

photo credit: neftos

 As an Early Easter descends on us, I decided to try a recipe I found in “A Taste of Portugal”.

Easter Sunday is celebrated after the first full moon that occurs after the Spring Equinox. Spring Equinox marks the time when the Sun moves into Aries - Equinox means equal day and equal night. The new festival of Easter harks back to the Pagan festival of Oestre (meaning ‘egg’) so eggs are traditional at this time of year across the Northern Hemisphere. Eggs are wonderful symbol for new life and for pondering the big questions i.e. which came first - chicken or egg

As the sun moves into Aries, the earth gets a vibrant push to produce. The ground begins to warm and new life springs everywhere.

Marking the end of Lent, Easter is a time to indulge in good food and celebration. Regardless of whether or not you are religious, it’s an excellent time to let your hair down and celebrate Spring.

Easter in Portuguese is Páscoa and just as we have Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs in England, Portugal has it’s own traditions for Easter food.

Folar is perhaps one of the best known of Portuguese Easter foods and from what I have seen there seems to be a variety of ways to cook it. Folar is typically associated with having a boiled egg (or few) embedded into the top of the bread and held in place by a cross of bread dough. Most of the recipes I have seen are slightly sweet and contain cinnamon although I have seen reference to savoury breads as well which include meats.

For the ingredients you will need
14oz (400g) Flour
1/2 oz (15g) Fresh Yeast
1 1/2 (45g) Caster Sugar
3oz (90g) Butter
1 Large Egg
1/2 pint (300ml) Milk
1 teaspoon Powdered Aniseed
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt

For Decoration
2 hard boiled eggs
1 beaten egg for brushing

How to Make It
In a bowl combine the yeast, 1/4 of the flour, a 1/3 of the milk (warmed) and half the sugar.
Mix together to make a dough, cover and leave in a warm place for 1/2 hour
Beat the eggs with the salt and spices and remaining milk and sugar.
Kneed in the flour and egg mix to the dough gradually.
Kneed in the butter.
The dough should not stick to the side of the bowl.
Cover the dough and leave it to rise for about three hours in a warm place.
Break the dough into two (or leave whole) and plant the eggs on top. Make a cross with two rolled lengths of dough to put on the top, holding the egg in place.
Brush the bread with the beaten egg.
Cook at 210c/425F/Gas 7 until golden brown.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

What I discovered when I was setting up the photograph of the ingredients (yes I did forget to put the milk in the picture) was that I hadn’t read that the recipe called for fresh yeast and what I had was dried yeast. I attempted to use the dried yeast but found that the mixture was far wetter than it should have been. To compensate, I ended up using a lot more flour which made the final result rather doughy. This sorely tried my patience - especially when I had to leave halfway through to go and buy some more flour from the shops!

Anyway - aside from this problem, my Folar did turn out rather nicely. I personally am not that keen on aniseed so I did leave this out. In restrospect I would definately use fresh yeast, not only to keep the consistency but also the avoid the stench of readying dried yeast for cooking - uggh!

I really like this recipe as you can really make your own. Whilst it might not quite be to Portuguese tradition, why not embrace your inner child and paint your boiled egg with food colouring? I’ve seen quite a few pictures of breads from other places made like this and they do look very attractive. This is what I’m planning on doing next time

Whilst researching Folar, I also came across a couple of other recipes for Easter that you might be interested in. One is Ninho de Pascoa (Easter Nest) which is a cake made to look like a birds nest. Such a wonderful idea for Spring celebrations! This is certainly a cake I would like to make as it could involve a lot of play. I imagine just using a simple sponge mix would suffice, scoop out the top, add chocolate eggs and decoration and there you go. There’s a lovely example here (in Portuguese) and here (also in Portuguese)

Lastly here’s a veggie savoury recipe that I also stumbled on. A spinach and egg tart which looks absolutely divine.

Happy Spring and Happy Easter everyone!

photo credit: neftos

In Love With Lisbon’s Flickr Group has now hit 100 photo’s. I became a member of Flickr when I came back from my first trip to Lisbon last May and have been a fan ever since. If you have never investigated Flickr I highly recommend it. It has been a source of inspiration to me both for this website and also for other pursuits such as writing and music. As well as being able to flick through other people’s holiday snaps, there are some stunning images captured by talented amateur photographers as well as professional ones. There are millions of photo’s to see covering all aspects of life. People, animals, places, cute puppies, a thousands sunsets, hidden places, the weird and wacky, arty mysteries and so it goes on. There are groups dedicated to the colour blue, haunting photographs, black and white, sepia, food, trees, hearts and again - so it goes on. If you have any kind of creative inclinations you can while away a good few hours. If you are a photographer the community discussions and notes on photo’s can give you some excellent tips.

photo credit: Filipe Dâmaso Saraiva

In Love With Lisbon Flickr group was born last August, a few weeks after the site went live. Like it’s mother ship, the group has steadily been growing. The aim of the group was to show images that “capture the heart of Portugal’s beautiful capital city”. There was already a wonderful group called Illustrar Portugal and groups for other specific places in Portugal as well as an already thriving Portuguese run Lisbon group called Amar Lisboa (Loving Lisbon -of course I rather like that title!).

I have been spending more quality time on Flickr in order to build the ILWL group and it is wonderful to make new connections and see how others see Lisbon. Looking through all the images already submitted to the pool is like dipping into a warm sunny afternoon in the beautiful city.  It makes me smile, makes me feel nostalgic, makes me sense the ever present saudade.

I love how different people notice different things: the dogs lying on the mosaic pavement, a couple dancing in the street, a rainbow over the castle, azulejos galore, graffiti, buskers, famous faces, quiet shadows, places that seem like they were just waiting to be discovered, steps in Alfama, modern sculpture. Like Lisbon itself, the group has so much to see and to say.

photo credit: starrynight1

I want to say a personal thankyou to everyone who has submitted so far to the group and to those who have also chosen to become members. Do look us up if you are a member of Flickr, and if you’re not a member why not come and join us? Whilst some of us choose to pay for a subscription, anyone can set up a free account and can use it to upload their photo’s to share with the world. Of course if you have some photo’s of Lisbon please submit them to the In Love With Lisbon pool! Now that I have celebrated the first milestone of 100 photo’s I’m looking forward to our next milestone - set at 1000 photo’s. Let’s see how quickly we can hit this target!

In true community spirit here are a list of other groups relating to Portugal that I really like. I’m sure you are going to love what you see.

In Love With Lisbon

Portuguese Food and Drink (another group I also started)

Amar Lisboa

Ilustrar Portugal

Postais Ilustrados de Portugal Huge long running group with thousands of images

Lisboa

Lisboa na Rua

Azulejos de Portugal If you love Portuguese tile then this is for you

Alfama

Portugal Unlimited