Food and Wine Portugal

Takeaway Grill Cabanas Review

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:39:02 +0000

We recently discovered this tiny little takeaway, situated at the western end of Cabanas’s boardwalk, facing the seafront.

The takeaway is next door to the Mariscos & Petiscos restaurant. We have yet to establish whether it is part of the same establishment. The takeaway offers the traditional dishes one would expect – piri piri chicken, ribs, bacalhau à Brás, rice and chips. It also provides some alternative dishes which are less usual for a takeaway of this sort – prawn curry, monkfish kebab and prawn açorda.

Cabanas Take Away Grill

We’ve tried a number of different dishes and the standard overall has been pretty high. The prawn curry is delicious – very mildly spiced, but rich and creamy, with a generous amount of prawns. The prawns are topped and tailed, making it easy to eat, but it would be easier still if they shelled them completely!

The picanha here is among the best steak I have eaten since moving to Portugal. The secreto of black pork is salty and delicious – so much so that my wife has found it hard to choose anything else when we eat from here!

The only slight disappointment so far has been the side serving of cooked vegetables, which tend to be soggy and sitting in a small pool of cooking water. However, given this is how vegetables in Portugal are often served, this can’t really be seen as a serious criticism.

Portion size seems to vary – the fish kebab is far from generous, while a portion of ribs or secreto is easily enough for two – but the standard of the food has all been very good.

The takeaway also offers a number of extras – desserts, wine, crisps and soft drinks being a few of these. They have promotions on particular items from time to time. The only real fault I have found so far is that the items on offer (most recently jars of interesting looking sauces) have very short expiry dates – in some cases the end of the month – so watch out for that.

Overall this takeaway adds a valuable extra option to the limited takeaway selection in Cabanas – with a friendly team offering cheaply priced, good quality fast food.

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Chocolate and Algarve Orange Cake

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:03:40 +0000

It is orange season again in the Algarve and my mother-in-law’s orchard is once again laden with more sweet, ripe fruit than we can possibly know what to do with. Returning home with a bag full of oranges, my wife set about finding ways to use them up.

“This recipe is an adaptation of one from Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen. It makes a wonderfully light yet sticky cake, similar in texture to Jamaican ginger cake. Having scorched the top of my cake in the oven, I needed to shave the top off and ice it with something, so created an orange butter cream that turned out to complement the cake beautifully.”

Nigella’s book can be found here, and is one that gets pulled down from the shelf frequently in our house:

Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

Orange Cake Ingredients

Algarve Orange Cake

For the cake:
150g butter, softened
175g dark muscavado sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
100g dark chocolate, melted
150g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 orange

For the icing:
100g butter
Icing sugar (as much as it takes to achieve the desired consistency of the icing)
Zest of 1 orange

To make the orange cake:

1. Line a rectangular loaf tin with baking parchment and heat the oven to 175◦C.
2. Melt the chocolate using a bain-marie (sit it in a bowl placed over a saucepan of gently boiling water).
3. While the chocolate is melting, stir together the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda, then set aside.
4. Beat the butter, sugar and golden syrup using an electric mixer, then pour in the melted chocolate with the mixer still running (keep it running until all the ingredients listed below have been mixed in).
5. Add 1 tbsp of the flour mixture, then 1 egg.
6. Add a further tbsp of the flour mixture, followed by the second egg, then the rest of the flour mixture.
7. Add the orange zest and orange juice. (Although Nigella warned that the mix may curdle at this point, mine didn’t.)
8. Turn off the mixer and pour the cake mix into the lined loaf tin.
9. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If the cake begins to scorch on the top, you can cover it with a layer of foil, or do what I did and just shave off the top once the cake has cooled.
10. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

For the butter cream icing:
1. Melt the butter until it is soft but not completely liquid.
2. Use a fork to stir in enough icing sugar to achieve a consistency that is solid enough not to run off the top of the cake, but still spreadable.
3. Stir in the orange zest.
4. Once the cake has cooled completely, dollop the icing on top and then use a spatula to spread it out evenly.

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Making Lemonade with Real Lemons

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:13:44 +0000

They say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This week my mother-in-law provided me with a giant bag full of lemons plucked from the tree outside her house, so I set about making lemonade with real lemons.

This is a really quick and easy recipe, so it’s great if friends have just popped round unexpectedly, and went down very well during our Portuguese lesson yesterday! It’s also very refreshing – perfect as Portugal warms up for another hot summer season.

Lemonade Ingredients

Lemonade with Real Lemons

250 ml water
1 cup sugar
250 ml lemon juice
1 litre water (additional)

1. Put 250 ml water in a pan with the sugar. Heat gently and stir frequently until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Turn off the heat, then stir in the lemon juice.
3. Add the litre of water to dilute the mixture and stir thoroughly.
4. Serve in large pitchers full of ice, with a few lemon slices thrown in if you wish.

I never realised quite how easy it was to make lemonade with real lemons, and will be doing so again.

For anyone reading this post wishing they lived somewhere where life’s problems include having too many lemons to know what to do with, I highly recommend this book:
Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia (The Lemons Trilogy)
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Octopus Salad – Portuguese Recipe

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:53:36 +0000

I avoided eating octopus for the first two years that I lived in Portugal, as I suspected, based on a severe stomach ache when I first moved here, that I was allergic to it. Finally, when out for dinner at a restaurant in Santa Luzia (the ‘octopus capital’ of the Algarve), I gave in to temptation and tried some octopus feijoada. It was delicious and, happily, had no ill effects. The world of octopus-eating had suddenly opened up before me.

Portuguese Octopus Salad

This recipe is one of my favourites. It has been pinched from a family member who, after eating an amazing octopus salad in Lisbon, decided to recreate the experience at home. It is simple, healthy and delightful served with warmed slices of dense, chewy Portuguese bread.

Recipe

This serves four as a starter or makes a nice, quick lunch for two.

1 tin Octopus in garlic oil
½ jar Portuguese pickles (mixed cauliflower, gherkin and carrot)
½ red onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
Handful coriander or parsley, chopped
1-2 tbsp white wine vinegar
Drizzle extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

1. Open the tinned Octopus and drain the oil into a medium sized mixing bowl. Chop the octopus into chunks of about 1 cm (½ inch) and add to the bowl with the oil.

2. Drain the pickles and add to the bowl, along with the red onion, garlic, herbs and white wine vinegar.

3. Season to taste and add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil if required.

4. Serve and enjoy.

Anyone keen to find more wonderful Portuguese recipes should try this book – one of my favourites:
Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found
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Guest Post: Basket Slope?

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:12:53 +0000

Today’s guest post is kindly provided by Dogoyaro, who went to investigate the new Encosta da Cesta wine bodega in the North of Portugal.

When folk come to our little house they nearly always tell us that we have a lovely view. “Shucks,” I say, “everybody’s got one of those.”

Not entirely true, of course, but in this area it’s either up or down, and views, good and bad, come with the territory.

Now, as any fule no….if you have a pleasant view it’s only a matter of time before someone starts ruining it. Our view used to be, some twenty odd years ago, relatively pristine but, over time, houses, sheds, (probably without planning permission)…have detracted from its former state. New electricity pylons string their expensive threads across the landscape, reminding one of Japanese beauty spots….festooned with cables every whichway.

But, of course, this is progress (and we surely do need some in the long neglected North) – one must be grateful and accept the occasional eyesore for the greater good…as if one had any alternative.

However, a few months ago, I noticed some building activity in the valley about seven hundred meters away & it was clear that something big was afoot. Within a few days, a small aircraft hangar had risen from its foundations, inevitably drawing the eye to one of the ugliest excrescences to be seen from our eyrie….on asking what purpose my new eyesore would serve, a neighbor pointed at it and said “Cesta”…ye gods, a basket factory…oh untrammeled joy!

I had though, missed the neighbor’s words before Cesta. They were “Encosta da Cesta” and my neighbor, making drinking motions, was indicating Plonk. Our little village, Oleiros, near Ponte da Barca has its own Winery!

Encosta da Cesta Bodega

The other day, after waiting for some months for them to get their act together, I paid them a visit to find out what they had to offer.

The aircraft hangar contained state-of-the-art equipment of polished steel…bottling plant etc. and was quite impressive…no foot stomping here & no beetles in your bottles.

The boss wasn’t there but a helpful guy answered my few questions. They produce DOC Vinho Verde, red (Vinhão) & white (Loureiro) in two qualities & he proffered me a glass of the (lower) white which was certainly drinkable but unremarkable…the higher quality was though definitely something else!

Although I normally drink only Vinho Verde Branco, curiosity drove me to take a couple of bottles of Tinto along together with a case of Branco. I did the right thing. Twenty years ago, Ponte da Barca Vinho Verde (from the Cooperativa & the ‘home-brewed’ variety) could have substituted for Sarsons…today, the Cooperativa produces some of the best VV available.

Encosta da Cesta Red

Our new small private winery produces a red which is almost black in the glass, unusually full-bodied with a fairly high 12%Alc. I am not knowledgeable about wine but this, to me, is pretty good if you’re into red VV…….but I shall stick to the Branco..

The pale straw coloured 13% Alc. Branco was excellent; the wine tingles on the palate, slightly bubbly & a joy to drink, almost vying for favour with the great Ponte da Barca Vinho Verde Branco Meio Seco produced by the Cooperativa today.

I do not know where our new winery distributes its produce but, given its size, it cannot be too far afield. They obviously intend to expand, as a considerable area of the surrounding land is being planted with vines.

Encosta da Cesta Vinho Verde

Should you be in the neighborhood, a visit to the winery is strongly recommended. Prices (at the Winery) for both Tinto & Branco, lower quality €1,50 a bottle…for the good stuff €2.50 – & and that price a better Vinho Verde would be hard to find, believe me!

UPDATE:

A further visit to the winery was necessary because I had dispersed my first small stock to friends. This time I was fortunate to meet the owner, Senhor Nelson Cerqueira, whose father had bought the land as an investment while in Australia where Senhor Nelson was born, returning to Portugal when he was a small child.

Senhor Nelson is now planting, probably wisely, the Alvarinho grape variety & told me that he plans, eventually, to make ‘champagne’ (Cava, Sekt)….he told me that in 2011 he had produced approximately 250,000 liters. I thought this might be excessive & asked him to write it down…and so it is.

I think his market is local to the North & he is able to move it all…there is a small export to Andorra (neighbor connections) and he hopes to expand in the course of time.

While Cesta means basket of course, this particular Cesta is the name of one of the many small Lugars in the Freguesia.

To sum up, should you find some of this eminently drinkable wine in your travels, treat yourself.Similar Posts:

Porca da Murça – White Wine Review

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:43:43 +0000

We recently found a new white wine of choice that I only picked up due to its price and rather attractive label.

People who don’t live in Portugal may find it hard to believe that I purchased a 2.50€ wine as a Friday night treat, but this is in fact quite true. We have regular mid-week

Porca da Murça - Portuguese White Wine

wine choices that can be had for between 1.29€ and 1.60€! If you visit us and get given a bottle in the 4€ range then you are truly a distinguished guest!

Anyway, this tasty white is from the Douro region, and goes by the name of Porca da Murça. It has the trademark tropical / gooseberry taste of a really good Malborough sauvignon blanc – something I miss greatly from the UK. Finding this is a great result for me, as it’s better than most of the supermarket sauvignon blancs available back in England, that, needless to say, come at a far higher price.

For those that know their Portuguese wine, I would describe this as rather like white Fonte de Nico (one of our regular budget wines), but one that is a little more grown-up, oaky, and sophisticated. It tastes far more expensive than it is, and that’s always good! Highly recommended, and spotted in Continente as well as a couple of small local stores.

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The Cult of Bimbi in Portugal

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:05:29 +0000

The Portuguese don’t really “do” ready meals, and that’s a good thing. However, last week we found out a bit of a secret that some expats may not be aware of; not all of the delicious dishes of feijoada (bean stew), arroz de pato (duck rice) and bacalhau com natas (cod in cream) are the result of hours slaving in the kitchen, nor indeed are all of the tasty cakes. Plenty of this food is in fact produced by a clever machine with something of a cult status in Portugal, and also, as it turns out, in Italy.

The Bimbi machine, known as the Thermomix in some countries, is an extraordinarily clever kitchen gadget that weighs, chops, sautés, cooks, steams, and even cleans itself.

Bimbi Machine in Portugal

This amazing little machine allows you to, quite literally, pour in fresh ingredients, program it, and await delicious “home cooked food.” It can produce bread dough in minutes, complicated chef-style sauces in seconds, and even make ice creams and sorbets.

There’s a good chance you won’t have heard of it, as it isn’t for sale in shops, and is only sold via direct sales reps, one of whom we crossed paths with over Christmas.

As an avid cook I admit to being slightly tempted by this machine despite its jaw-dropping price of nearly 1000 euros!

Since our demonstration, I have done plenty of online research about this clever gadget, which has in fact been available in various guises for several decades. Bimbi machines actually have a huge cult following, and, to my surprise, they are used in the kitchens of many top international chefs, and are especially popular (apparently) in the galley kitchens of luxury yachts.

Sadly for the sales rep, trying to persuade us to buy something while we are still licking our financial wounds from Christmas is rather poor timing, but I can’t help but think I may give in and buy one of these at some point. The main reason for this is that it will make us cook with fresh ingredients even on the days when we are too tired and jaded to do much beyond eating something lazy and unhealthy from Iceland!

However, I have one key misgiving: I adore cooking, and I especially love improvising, adapting, and tasting as I go. Trusting all of this to a machine makes me fear that the Bimbi could do for cooking what iTunes and Youtube has done for music. Although I can now listen to pretty much any song in the world within a matter of seconds, I fondly miss the hours spent trawling record shops. Similarly, while the Bimbi could allow us to pick hundreds of foods from its extensive recipe book, and have them made to perfection with no effort, could it not take the fun and the soul out of cooking? If it could, then I’m afraid I don’t really want one.

Have you got a Bimbi / Thermomix? What do you think?Similar Posts:

Iceland – Albufeira, Algarve, Portugal

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:26:22 +0000

The opening of a new Iceland store in the Algarve has provoked some strong debate amongst the expats in Portugal who frequent certain Internet forums.

Many expats (ourselves included), cite the ready availability of high quality, fresh local food as one of the main reasons for moving here. We have certainly embraced it, and can be found at Tavira market most weekends, stocking up on wonderful produce, fish and meat.

However, after living here a while, you do come to miss certain things, especially some cooking ingredients that are hard to find or very expensive. For this reason, we count ourselves among those welcoming Iceland’s arrival, and all of the extra culinary variety it brings with it.

The new Iceland store in Albufeira is not a British Iceland as such. It is run by a Spanish-based company called Overseas, who have an agreement with Iceland to sell their products in Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands. Unknown to us before we visited, the company also have a deal with Waitrose, so their products appear on the shelves alongside those from Iceland, as well as many well-known British brands.

We visited at the weekend, choosing to avoid the opening day crowds, but the store was still very busy and perhaps not for the faint-hearted. (Or, for that matter, for the one expat who we heard saying outside saying that he was “never bloody well coming here again!”)

Iceland in Albufeira

Fuelled by espressos and sugary churros from the van outside, we grabbed our trolleys and disappeared into the shop for a pleasurable couple of hours of exploring products that until now had been off-limits in Portugal–due to cost or lack of availability.

160 euros later, we left the store very pleased indeed. Plenty of Portuguese people, excited by a new range of products, joined the smiling expats, happy to have access to a well-priced taste of home.

Interestingly, the grocery aisles were far more crowded than the freezer sections – the particular highlights for us were condiments, ethnic foods, and some of the oils, herbs and spices not readily available in the Algarve.

The prices were low too, with the mark-up that must have to cover transport and importation costs seeming, to us at least, very generous.

Iceland in Albufeira also has a UK-style butchers counter, and although we didn’t make use of this, having already visited a “local” butcher earlier in the day, there was much of interest to us, especially fat English style lamb chops and big gammon joints.

I find it hard to find anything to criticize. The arrival of Iceland has created jobs, both for locals and expats, and given lots of variety to natives and expats alike. I can see the keen pricing offering a challenge to smaller food importers and Apolonia – but that is just the way business goes. Overseas and Iceland seem to be doing extremely well so far and they deserve to.

My Favourite Smoked Mackerel Salad - Thanks Iceland!

I’ll finish off with some of the highlights of our purchases from our first visit to Iceland in Portugal.

1. Christmas Crackers (we went without last year as the only ones we saw were extremely overpriced in Apolonia).

2. Lime leaves and lemon grass (once again we can enjoy Thai food without needing a mortgage to eat at the wonderful, but expensive Thai restaurant in Vilamoura).

3. Smoked mackerel (about to be devoured in a salad with new potatoes, walnuts and beetroot, as pictured above!)

4. Frozen cheesecake (Portuguse cheesecake isn’t cheesecake, sorry.)

5. Mini Kievs and Spaghetti Hoops (my wife’s highlights…OK so we did buy some processed food!)

6. Horseradish, mustard, cranberry sauce, redcurrant jelly, tartare sauce – all at prices we could afford – these often cost as much in Portugal as the meat or fish they are designed to accompany!

7. Quality Streets – well it’s nearly Christmas isn’t it?!

Iceland won’t be somewhere we visit, or need to visit, every week, but we WILL be back!Similar Posts:

“Portuguese?” Lemongrass Tea

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:56:19 +0000

Lemongrass can be really tricky to get hold of in the Algarve, so we were delighted to find some in our local supermarket recently, and looked forward to making a Thai dish with it.

To our shame, we found it a week or so later looking a little past its best, when we had already planned our meals for the week. My wife was determined not to throw it away after we had been so delighted to find it. She had heard that the usual use for lemongrass in Portugal was to make tea with it, so that is what she did. Over to her.

This is really the simplest recipe ever. It makes two cups of delicious, fragrant lemongrass tea. As lemongrass has a wide range of health benefits (from lowering cholesterol to preventing acne), it’s good for you too.

Ingredients:

Portuguese Lemongrass Tea

1 stick of lemongrass
Boiling water

1. Chop the lemongrass into 1 cm chunks in a small jug.
2. Pour enough boiling water into the jug for two cups of tea.
3. Allow to steep for 3-5 minutes, to taste.
4. Pour into tea cups, straining to remove the chunks of lemongrass if you prefer.

You can vary the recipe by adding mint leaves or other infusions.Similar Posts:

A Casa – Santa Luzia Restaurant Review

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:05:12 +0000

Our stop-off at “A Casa” in Santa Luzia was unplanned, but their blackboard listed a range of tempting petiscos (the Portuguese equivalent of tapas). This appealed to us, as we were peckish, but not sufficiently hungry for a full meal.

For those that don’t know the East Algarve, Santa Luzia brands itself as the “capital of octopus (polvo),” so it was unsurprising to find a range of octopus dishes on the menu.

Service was quick and friendly, and we ordered a selection of snacks to compliment the bread and queijo fresco that immediately appeared on the table.

Again, for those unfamiliar with such things, queijo fresco is a light cheese, rather like set cottage cheese, and supplied as part of the pre-meal couvert in many Portuguese restaurants. Queijo fresco is often rather tasteless, and needs rescuing with copious amounts of sat and pepper, but this was a goat version with a slightly stronger flavor than usual – a good start!

We started with a plate of cooked prawns, served simply with rock salt. The menu suggested these were local, and they were light in colour and tasted of the sea—a pleasing change from the rich, sweet varieties typically sold in the supermarkets. They were a little small, however, with not lot of meat remaining once shell and vein were disposed of. Still, they were tasty and disappeared quickly.

We followed our prawns with a generous serving of conquilhas – tiny cockles served hot in their shells in a simple butter, coriander and garlic sauce. Restaurants serve these in much the same way across the Algarve, and the difference between good conquilhas and bad is how well the chef has purged the bi-valves of salt. Sadly, these has some remaining, resulting in one in three causing a nasty crackle between the teeth—a shame, as they were fresh and delicious.

A Casa Santa Luzia

To finish up we figured we would have to finally try the local octopus. I’m sure we have eaten it before as part of a shellfish rice or cataplana, but the time had come for us to order it specifically.

The option we chose was octopus in a feijoada (bean stew.) Interestingly, I was uncertain after my first taste, but by the end of the dish, I was rather sold. Good feijoada is perfect comfort food, and this blend of octopus, butter beans and chorizo was bound together with a thick, but not overly rich gravy. As I commented to my wife at the time, this is a dish that, at some point soon, I am going to specifically crave, in the same way I have come to crave two other Portuguese dishes: bacalhau a bras (saltcod with potatoes, onion, egg and olives), and arroz de pato (duck rice).

As this was only a quick snack stop, we didn’t hang around for desserts, and our bill was suitably small, around 25€ for the items mentioned above and a half-bottle of white wine. “A Casa” in Santa Luzia didn’t blow us away, but there was nothing we ate that wasn’t perfectly pleasant, and served with a smile. For that reason I recommend it as a solid choice for a simple meal.Similar Posts: