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Friday, 13 April 2007 09:42 |
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The north of Portugal is renowned for its caldo verde, a Minho-style cabbage and potato soup, and its great variety of sweets and desserts, using generous quantities of eggs. {mosimage} Cozido à portuguesa is a national dish of meats, sausages and vegetables with its origins in the Trás-os-Montes region. Other hearty dishes are served up in the inland mountainous regions, making much use of partridges, hare, kid and pig, the favourite Portuguese meat, which is also used for sausages and hams (of which Chaves and Lamego presunto are the best known). Other cured meats of Northern Portugal include the farinheira sauasage made from pork, wine and flour and morcela, a well-seasoned blood sausage that's best fried or charcoal-grilled. The highly-spiced chouriço and paio sausages are also very popular. Various recipes of dried cod and other fish dishes are found around Oporto, along with tripas à moda do Porto, a strong-flavoured concoction of tripes, ham, beans and rice.
Desserts come in various forms, such as the tasty sopa dourada, a sponge cake recipe from Viana do castelo made with ground almonds and egg yolk. Named after the abbot who invented it, Pudim Abade de Priscos is flavoured with lemon, spices and Port wine.
Northern specialities of cake are rich, smooth and sugary, and often flavoured with cinnamon. Toucinho do céu, which means 'bacon from heaven', is a popular locally-made almond and cinnamon cake. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 28 November 2008 14:31 |
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Friday, 13 April 2007 09:40 |
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Besides its immense beauty, the central region of Portugal is one of the most gastronomically varied parts of the country, specialising in local delicacies such as eel stew and all manner of roast meats and shellfish. {mosimage}
Most of the main national Portuguese dishes can be found in the capital Lisbon, where an abundance of restaurants serve up the best in regional cuisine, such as tasty fish soups, local seafood, sole, boiled hake, crab meat, liver, partridge and beef steaks served in a tangy onion sauce.
Visitors to the ancient university city of Coimbra should taste the chanfana, a thick casserole of kid or lamb meat stewed in red wine, plus the local cakes known as Santa Claras.
The region's most famous dish is arguably leitão, roast sucking pig from the village of Mealhada, while fresh trout is a local delicacy in Covilhã, a picturesque town in the Serra da Estrela mountains also known for its rich sheep's cheese called queijo da serra. The coastal resort of Nazaré is most notably for its fish stew, known in Portuguese as caldeirada.
Tartlets such as pasteis de nata epitomize the region's wide variety of cakes, most of which are based on egg yolks, almonds and spices. Sintra's little cheese cakes called queijadas are can be bought hot from the local bakers. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 28 November 2008 14:31 |
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