So the plan was to make Bolo Rei – a traditional Portuguese cake/bread. Bolo Rei is a sweet rich fruit bread laced with port that was originally made to be eaten at Epiphany (January 6th) but these days is eaten throughout the festive season. Bolo means ‘cake’. Rei means King.

But Bolo Rei is meant to have crystallised fruit on the top – highly decorative and colourful, reflecting the jewels in a Kings crown. I bought all my ingredients and then hit a hurdle when it came to the crystallised fruit. All three of my local (and large) supermarkets didn’t stock it and I was at a loss of where to go and short on time. Somehow I recalled that Bolo Rei without the crystallised fruit is called Bolo Rainha. Queen Cake then is my offering to you this Yuletide

The recipe I followed I found on Delia’s website here

Ingredients

100 g (3 1/2 oz) glacé citrus peel chopped
50 g (1 1/2 oz) raisins
50 g (1 1/2 oz) pine nuts – I used almonds as the shop was out of pine nuts (!)
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) port
2 1/2 tsp dried yeast
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) warm water
500 g (1 lb) strong white bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
100 g (3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter softened
100 g (3 1/2 oz) caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
3 eggs beaten

For the topping

egg glaze made with 1 egg yoke beaten with 1 tbsp water
glacé cherries
Sliced almonds (my addition as I think they look pretty)
Caster Sugar
apricot jam to glaze
Icing sugar to decorate

Method

 
1. Soak the glacé peel, raisins, and pine nuts/almonds in the port overnight. Sprinkle the yeast into the water in a bowl. Leave for 5 minutes; stir to dissolve. Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeasted water.

2. Use a wooden spoon to draw enough of the flour into the yeasted water to form a soft paste. Cover the bowl with a tea towel. Leave to sponge until frothy and slightly risen, about 20 minutes.

Ok so I fell at the first hurdle by not quite understanding the instructions (I don’t bake that often!). After mixing all the yeasted water with ALL the flour I realised I hadn’t got anything like a paste – oops. I started again, this time mixing the yeasted water with about half of the flour to make the paste like consistency required.

3. Beat the butter with the sugar and lemon and orange zest together in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Add the mixture to the flour well, then mix in the flour from the sides to form a soft dough.

I’d like to add that stage 3 was where I discovered my grater was as blunt as a bottle nosed dolphin and had to resort to finely chopping my zest – which took forever…

4. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface. Knead until soft, smooth, silky, and elastic, about 10 minutes. Knead in the peel, raisins, and pine nuts until evenly distributed.

I discovered here that maybe I should had drained off the port from the soaked raisons and pine nuts…

5. Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours. Knock back, then leave to rest for 10 minutes.

Ok so after an hour I just thought ‘this is never going to rise’ and moved on to the next stage. Next time I will find a warm place instead of leaving it in the freezing kitchen AND leave it for the required 2 hours…

6. Shape the dough into a ring (I separated the dough and made two rings), then place it on a buttered baking sheet. Put a jar or bottle in middle to hold shape.

7. Cover the dough with a tea towel, and leave to prove until doubled in thickness, about 1 hour.

Ok this time I figured the kitchen was too cold so left it in a warmer room and saw a little improvement…

8. To make the topping. Brush the dough with the egg glaze then decorate with the glacé fruit and the caster sugar. Bake in a preheated oven 210c for 45 minutes until golden. Warm the apricot jam in a saucepan over low heat until liquid, then brush the top and sides of the bread with it to glaze. Brush? I’m supposed to have a cook’s brush? Ok, spread thinly with clean fingers…Leave to cool on a wire rack.

After around 25 minutes in the oven I peeked and discovered both my cakes had risen like crazy, closing the holes in the centre. Note to self, next time make the holes much bigger or cook around a jam jar perhaps…

After the required 45 minutes my bolos where starting to look very brown yet the insides seemed uncooked. Frustrated at this point with my significant lack of cooking skills I took them out of the oven and fought the impulse to throw them both straight in the bin. They did however smell good so I cut both to see how they had cooked. Of course both were boiling hot at this point so I didn’t consider how the texture would change or that they would continue to cook until the heat dissipated. The fabulous Christmassy aroma however soothed my bruised cooks pride and I decided to let them cool down to see what happened.

A while later I realised that I had two very tasty if rather hacked-to-pieces cakes. I gave some to a certain Portuguese person who informed me that it tasted good. Happiness! I think it tastes rather fine too. He also gently informed me that he doesn’t know anyone who cooks Bolo Rei or Bolo Rainha back home as everyone just buys them from on of the myriad of shops that stocks them. After my kitchen trials I’m thinking no surprise there! That said, I have some ingredients left and a willing heart. I might just make another…

Feliz Natal!

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Once you have visited Portugal and discovered the wonderful cuisine available, you may find yourself missing the tastes and smells of the foods you sampled. Thankfully, the wonder of internet shopping means that we can all find somewhere to purchase some of those wonderful foods.

Perhaps you are a whizz in the kitchen and need to find traditional ingredients, perhaps you are missing the taste of home. Maybe it’s just that you can’t forget the delicate flavour of Serra de Estrella cheese. Whatever the reason, there are several good online stores which cater to Portuguese food lovers around the world.

Here is a round-up of some of the best places you can buy Portuguese food online.

I’ll start off with a site for those of you in the UK. Portuguese Food.co.uk is a new online shop catering specifically to the UK market. I thank my colleague at work for this one as he spotted a sticker in the back window of a car advertising the site in Manchester and knowing my endless obsession with everything Portuguese, pointed it out to me the following day!

Portuguese Food.co.uk is a Portuguese run company with a nice range of foods online. They have a good looking, easy to navigate website and a passion for Portuguese food. I emailed the owners and asked them to tell me a little more about the company. Here’s what they had to say:-

“We offer a truly unique range of High Quality and specialised produce from various regions of Portugal including our very own Home made branded goods.One such produce is pork in the form of Chorizo & Serrano Ham, which in Portugal is a tradition that has been around for hundreds of years for which Portugal is now famous. Many Portuguese families would cure the meat from a whole pig utilising every part to make a range of delicious cured chorizos packed with herbs and spices.
We supply to UK Restaurants, Hotels and various catering outlets direct from our warehouse in Portugal. We find that the customer experience brings them back for more.”

For the vegetarians amongst us, they also offer traditional sea salt, confectionary, beautiful cheeses, olives and of course olive oil. They also offer a Portuguese hamper which would make a lovely gift for your Portuguese friends who live in England.

This is an excellent new site and I imagine they will have more to offer in the future. Note that they also supply wholesale to the restuarant trade as well.

Staying in the UK for the moment, there is also a company called Shop From Portugal which has it’s own site as well as an Ebay store. They sell a range of products including foods although the Ebay store doesn’t hold as many products as their own site does. Their own website has a rather distrating animated background, but if you can get past that, they do have quite a few interesting products for sale including the lovely queijadas from Sintra.

Moving on to those in the States now, there is a great website called Portuguese Food.com which has a vast range of products to choose from. If you are missing sweet bread or pasteis de nata, this is where to come. As well as stocking meats, cheeses and condiments, this company also stocks a large variety of products which would be found ‘back home’. You can also find hampers and a few kitchen items such as crockery made in traditional Portuguese style. A nice touch to this site is that they also provide a section of Portuguese recipes.

Surprisingly Amazon.com have a big range of Portuguese foods on offer from a variety of suppliers. I’ve already done the hard work for you by scouring the site and creating a Portuguese Food section in the Store here at In Love With Lisbon.  You can wander through the virtual aisles by clicking here and then selecting ‘Gourmet Food’.

Talking of Gourmet Food, that is the title of the next online store I have as a recommendation to you. Whilst not specificallly Portuguese, Gourmet Food do stock a small range of Portuguese products. Those of you who have tried chocolame or salame de chocolate (a fabulous Portuguese chocolate cake that looks like salami) will be delighted to discover you can buy it from here!

Last but not least is a site called Alcofa.com. The name comes from the old Portuguese word for a shopping basket. Currently the site is down for maintainance but I’m including it here in the hope that it will be back up and running soon. I’ll update this post when it does.

I hope you have enjoyed my round-up of Portuguese food retailers online. If you know of any others then please feel free to leave a comment.

Azulejos from a photo by averiguare on Flickr
Queijadas from a photo by lieneuh on Flickr

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Straight From The Farm

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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!

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I decided to shake of my worries and invite my best friend Markus and his partner over for an evening with a Portuguese flavour. I made a big old faithful chili – a tried and trusted recipe that gave me a starting point for talking about how Portugal was a major mover and shaker in the spice trade. For dessert I decided on Tarte de Maça e Creme. Markus had bought previously me a copy of The Taste of Portugal and this recipe comes from there. Obviously, Portuguese wine was on the menu. I chose Dão mostly because it was the only Portuguese wine that was in the supermarket (!) but it’s a nice dry red. We followed the meal by watching A Lisbon Story.

Anyway – back to the recipe…

I took photo’s along the way.

INGREDIENTS

Pastry
6oz Flour
3 oz Butter
Pinch of Salt

Filling
1lb apples (cox or russet)
1/2 pint milk
4 tablespoons caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon flour

Method
To make the pastry:-
Mix together the flour and salt
Rub the butter with your fingertips into the flour until you have a light breadcrumb like texture.
Add enough water to the mixture to make it into a dough. You don’t need too much water – maybe about a tablespoon.
Wrap the pastry with clingfilm and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
Notes – I only had coarse salt in as you can see from the photo and I realised this wasn’t going to work so I left the salt out. I also only left the pastry for about 10 minutes. Since then, I have read on Delia Smiths website that the reason you leave pastry to rest is so that the gluten in the flour has time to react and make the pastry more elastic and easier to roll out – hmmmm…probably should have read that before but the pastry wasn’t too badly behaved.

Roll out your pastry and press into a tin. I used a 9 inch special French tatin tin greased and floured first. There was just enough pastry to cover it.

Next peel and core the apples (oh for an apple corer!) and cut into neat thin slices.
Without an apple corer I found this rather challenging so ended up with nice thin slices of varying shapes! Then place these neatly (or haphazardly) in the pastry lines tin.

Put this into an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees (gas mark 4) for 25 minutes.

While this is cooking, whizz together the eggs, flour, milk and sugar for the filling. Once the tart has been in the oven for 25 minutes, take it out and pour over this mixture. As I don’t cook a great deal I was worried this very liquid filling wasn’t going to set but I can assure you now that it does. Put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes until set and slightly golden. Personally I found that I needed to leave it for about half an hour but that could be down to my very old cooker.

The Tarte can be served hot or cold. I served it cold with cream, a slice of strawberry and a spring of fresh mint. I would however, like to try this hot with perhaps a sprinkling of cinnamon.

This is a lovely recipe. I tried Tarte de Maça in Portugal from Café Suiça and fell in love with the light cream like custard. I have never liked the custard we have in England. Even when I was at school I would turn my nose up at it; something that shade of yellow could not possibly be edible!

This Portuguese custard however is a simple sweet creaminess with a delectable texture that goes well with the apples and the crisp pastry.

I had a lovely evening and the food seemed to go down well. It was nice to discover the pleasure of cooking again and of course share my passion for Portugal. I’m sure there will be more posts like this in the future as I try my hand at other Portuguese recipes. Be warned though – desserts and cakes have always been my forté! It’s probably all stems from the first time my Granny showed me how to make victoria sponge cake when I was about 5, then let me lick the spoon

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Bacalhãu de Consoada  Christmas Eve Cod

Bolo Rei  King Cake – traditionally served on Epiphany on January 6th but    popular throughout the Christmas season

Massa de Filhos  A Christmas doughnut traditionally left to rise whilst the family attend Midnight mass

Leite Creme  A creamy Christmas dessert

Sopa Dourada  Golden Soup – which is actually a dessert not a soup.

Mexidos   Another dessert from the North of Portugal. This looks very simple to make!

Arroz Doce  Sweet rice pudding – yes, a favourite at Christmas time too.

Conserva de Cenoura Savoury Portuguese Carrots – a lovely side dish

Perú Recheado com Nozes  Turkey stuffed with walnuts

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Os Tibetanos is a lovely little restaurant off Avenida Liberdade. It is part of the Buddist centre and therefore is a tranquil place to eat.  To get there, take the metro to Avenida station and take the exit from the station to Rua do Salitre. Rua do Salitre is the road to your right (facing back towards downtown), just beside the large white statue. Prepare yourself for a walk – uphill all the way! If you didn’t have an appetite before you started walking you certainly will by the time you arrive! As you get towards the top of the street, look for the green flags hanging down from the building on the left hand side.

It was 1pm when I arrived and the place was packed. They are only open between 12 – 2pm for lunch so it’s best to get there early if you can. They open again at 7.30 in the evening. A table was found for me however and I was greeted with a serene smile. Despite being busy, the whole place felt very relaxed and was cool even though it was hot outside. There’s a gorgeous garden where other people were busy eating. Inside, the walls are lined with Tibetan pictures and gentle music plays in the background. Prayer flags are also hanging and there is a faint scent of incense. You can feel the healing vibes and sense that this place is one of devotion.

The menu was brought to me and I had to take a while to figure out what I wanted. I decided that I was very hungry indeed and plumped for the dish of the day at a cost of 7.50 euros + 2.50 for a freshly squeezed juice . All the while I was furtively looking at what others were eating and everything looked sumptuous. There were mixed salads with mozzerella and basil, a lunchtime 3 course menu (soup, veg and rice and dessert plus herbal tea), savoury balls with a dip (which seemed very popular) and a variety of other dishes. There’s also a range of organic wines and beers as well as herbal tea’s and fresh juices.

A wide range of people seem frequent the restaurant: beside me was a family with a little boy, to the other side two middle ages ladies, across the way it looked like a business meeting was going on and various student types were hanging out in the garden. There didn’t seem to be too many tourists, perhaps because you do have to go a little out of the way to get there.

My food arrived quickly and was beautifully presented and plentiful. The dish of the day was a kind of bread and mushroom savoury pudding served with chinese cabbage, rice and a Japenese sauce. I really enjoyed it and it was very filling. The apple juice I ordered was straight out of the apple.

I had quite a few places to visit the day I ate at Os Tibetanos so I didn’t have time to visit the little shop that’s beside the restaurant. Next time I go I think I will book a table outside as it would be nice to sit down in the gardens.

Os Tibetanos is a lovely place to eat and a safe haven for vegetarians. The service is very friendly and the food gorgeous for a reasonable price. To walk off your food you could take a wander to the Botanical Gardens or sit quietly on Praça do Alegria (square of happiness) nearby.

To find out more visit their website (in Portuguese)

Os Tibetanos

Azulejo by Insula on Flickr

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Pasteis de Nata Those gorgeous custard tarts that are a Portuguese delight! Delicious Days has a good article as well as a well received recipe

Bacalhãu á Gomes de Sá A casserole of cod (bacalhau) and potatoes and onions

Feijoada A meat and bean stew

Portuguese Sweet Bread Pão Doce. As it says, a lovely light sweet bread that’s great for breakfast

Cozido   Portuguesa – Portuguese Stew A meat and vegetable stew

Bacalhau  Brás - Cod with scambled eggs Salt cod )Bacalhau) is the most popluar of all foods in Portugal. It is said that there are as many ways to cook it as days in the year. It is often eaten at Christmas as well as throughout the year. This is a nice simple hearty recipe.

Arroz Doce Portuguese rice pudding – literally ’sweet rice’

Piri-Piri Hot chili sauce – way too hot for me but the Portuguese have adopted it as a national favourite from Africa

Pão de-Ló Portuguese sponge cake – this recipe is perfect.

Some other useful sites

Gils Portuguese Recipes

Portuguese recipes

Leite’s Culinaria

Mary’s Portugeuse Sweetbread If you are in the US you can order her famous bread online

Ana Taveira’s Azores Traditional Recipes

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