Recipes from the Algarve - Cataplana

Ingredients: (6 servings)
3 medium Spanish onions thinly sliced
3 cloves of crushed garlic
2 green bell peppers cut into small strips
Olive oil
1 bay leaf
1 lb tinned plum tomatoes
1/4 lb smoked ham, diced
2 oz. prosciutto ham, diced
1/4 lb portuguese sausage (or any other chorizo style sausage)
Small glass dry white wine
3 lb / 4 dozen fresh small clams in the shell, rinsed.
Some fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
Paprika / and or ground chili pepper

Cook the onions, garlic, and green peppers in the olive oil over a gentle heat until onions are golden. Add the bay leaf and the tomatoes, keep a quarter of their juice. Bring to 'simmering', then cover and reduce the heat to enable the sauce to cook slowly for 30 minutes. Then add the remaining tomato juice, the prosciutto, the smoked ham, and the chorizo. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes. Season with paprika or chili pepper

Spoon half the sauce into the bottom of the cataplana dish (or a similar style heavy pan with a lid), then lay the clams on top. Add the remaining sauce and the wine, cover tightly, cook for 15 minutes over a gentle heat, do not open.

Add parsley to decorate. Eat with fresh bread


Other Recipes from the Algarve
Sopa da Pedra
Sweet Rice Pudding
Pudim Flan
Dom Rodrigos
Broad beans - Algarve Style
"Fig" Cheese

Recipes from Portugal - Caldo verde - Cabbage and potato soup

This tasty soup can be found in both fancy restaurants and humble family kitchens. Made with finely shredded “couve portuguesa”, this thick and filling soup also contains plenty of potato, and garlic.

The Soup can also be served with a slice of “Chouriço” and served at the table with oil.

500g cabbage

1.5L water

4 medium sized potatoes

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

Salt

Olive oil

“Chouriço” Sausage

Clean the cabbage, throw away the stalk and outer leaves. Separate, wash and drain the remaining leaves chop into very fine pieces. Peel the potatoes. onion and garlic. Chop the potatoes and onion. and place in a casserole dish along with the garlic cloves and three tablespoons of oil.

Pour in a litre and a half of water and cover the dish. Leave to slowly boil for about fifteen minutes. Once the potatoes. onion and.garlic are cooked. blend them together with the stock until a creamy soup is formed. Add the chopped slices of cabbage and a pinch of salt. Cover the caldo verde and leave to boil over a slow heat for approximately fifteen minutes.

Serve hot.

Other Recipes from the Algarve
Sopa da Pedra
Sweet Rice Pudding
Pudim Flan
Dom Rodrigos
Broad beans - Algarve Style
"Fig" Cheese

Recipes from the Algarve - Fig "Cheese"

Serves 8
250g dry figs
250g almonds

250g sugar

25g powdered chocolate
5g cinnamon
1,5g of aniceed
1,5 dl of water

half a lemon peel scrapings
sugar to taste

.

Preparation:
Roast the figs and the almonds. Grind them separately. Put the water, sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel scrapings, aniseed and chocolate in a pan. Heat until the mixture separates when the bottom of the pan is scrapped by a spoon. Add the ground almonds, stir constantly and let it boil for five minutes. Then add the ground figs, continuing to stir and let the mixture boil another five minutes. Separately, sprinkle a shallow pan with granulated sugar, pour the mixture into it and let it cool. Once it is cold, mould one or several "cheeses".

Other Recipes from the Algarve

Sopa da Pedra

Sweet Rice Pudding

Pudim Flan

Dom Rodrigos

Broad beans - Algarve Style

Recipes from the Algarve - Broad beans - Algarve Style

Ingredients for four people

800 grs of shelled broad beans

150 grs of black sausage (morcela)
150 grs of red sausage (chouriço vermelho)
2 cloves of garlic
0,25 dl of olive oil
150 grs of bacon

1 bunch of coriander, garlic and onion
.

Preparation:
Shell the broad beans. Wash them in cold water and drain them, using a strainer. Place a pan on the flame. Pour in a little water, add the broad beans and cook for about 8 minutes. Drain the water and remove the beans from the pan. Peel the cloves of garlic and mince them. Slice up the sausages and arrange small stripes of bacon. Place the pan on the stove once again, after washing and drying it. Pour in the olive oil and let it warm up. Add the garlic and let it brown, without burning it. Then add the broad beans and a little water. Cover the pan and cook the ingredients. Separately, fry the meat in a frying-pan. Add the meat to the beans that are being cooked and stir until well mixed. Let the mixture thicken. Sprinkle with the coriander and chopped young garlic and onion bulbs.
.

Other Recipes

Sopa da Pedra

Sweet Rice Pudding

Pudim Flan

Dom Rodrigos

Recipes from the Algarve - Dom Rodrigos

Ingredients (Makes 6)
250 g of fios de ovos (an egg-yolk sweet) ;
50 g of husked, grated almonds ;
250 g of sugar ;
0.5 dl of water ;
4 egg yolks ;
cinnamon to taste

Preparation:
Place 200 g of sugar in a pan and cover it with water. Bring to the boil and boil for two minutes until the sugar forms pearl-like drops when dripped from a spoon.

Take off the heat and stir in the almonds. Wait until mixture is lukewarm, then add the egg yolks and place on the heat again, stiring until the mixture thickens. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon.

With the remaining sugar and water, make a syrup by boiling until the sugar forms a string when dripped from a spoon. Pour the syrup into a frying-pan and bring to the boil. When it boils, add the fios de ovos and the previously made mixture of sugar, almonds and egg yolks. Mix until the mixture is completely blended.

Let everything brown and then take it out of the frying-pan.

Distribute the mixture in equal amounts among 6 squares of coloured foil, join the four corners of each square and roll them up.

Other Recipes

Sopa da Pedra
Sweet Rice Pudding
Pudim Flan

Recipes from the Algarve - Arroz Doce

Sweet Rice Pudding

1 cup of rice 2 egg yolk
3 cups milk ½ cup of sugar
1 tsp ground lemon peel 1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp cinamon 1 tbsp sugar

Put the rice into boiling water and after five minutes drain off the water. Bring the milk with sugar and vanilla to the boil.
Add the rice and cover. Simmer until the rice is soft. Break the egg yolk and mix with lemon peel. Stir this into the rice pudding. Fill into small glass dishes and stand to cool. Turn over and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Recipes From Portugal - Sopa de Pedra

Once upon a time there was an old man (a different story speaks of ‘a travelling monk’) who went begging in the Algarve from door to door, farmhouse to farmhouse. One evening he reached a lonely farmhouse in the hills and the people there gave him shelter. He was very poor but very proud. When he asked in the kitchen if he could cook himself a little soup, they agreed. But the farmer’s wife was most surprised to see the old man reach into his bag and take out a few stones. He put the stones into his cooking pot, poured water over them and put the pot on the fire. How could the old man possibly think that these stones and water would make a good soup? “Be patient for a little while,” answered the old man and left. Feeling sorry for him, the farmer’s wife took whatever vegetables she had in her own pots and added a little of each to the stones.

In a different version of the story the old man supposedly answered that the stones where all he needed, but he would like just a few things to cook with them. Whatever the story, the result was the same. Stone soup was born and it exists to this day. Sopa de Pedra is an ideal way to use up left-overs.

Sopa de Pedra - Stone Soup
1 litre water or stock 2 tbsp oil
1 onion 1 large carrot
1 green lettuce 2 slices of toast
1 egg salt, pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan, cut onion into slices and brown in the oil. Cut lettuce and carrot into small pieces, add to the onion and pour water or stock over it. Break toast into small crumbs and add to soup. Cook for about 10 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste. Whisk the egg and pour gently into the soup.

Recipes from the Algarve - Pudim Flan

We often get asked for recipes for one of the dishes that we serve in our restaurant. The traditional Pudim Flan - Creme Caramel is one of the most popular.


Pudim Flan
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 vanilla pod
¼ litre milk

Whisk one tablespoon of sugar and the eggs to a frothy consistency. On a very low heat, gently stir this into luke warm milk. Cut the vanilla pod open and scrape out the inside. Add this to the cream. In a separate pot, melt the remaining sugar and stir continuously until brown. Pour the caramel into four small pastry moulds and top up with the egg mixture. Place in a bowl with hot water and cook very carefully for 30 minutes. Remember not to allow the water to boil and splash into the moulds. Remove the moulds and stand to cool. Just before turning them out, dip them briefly into hot water,