| Bolo Rei |  |
The traditional food we eat at festival in Portugal
Dia dos Reis (King´s Day)
It represents the day when the three the Wise Kings of the East adored the Infant Christ. It takes place on January 6 - the day of Epiphany. This ritual also represents the Roman times when the parties in honour of Saturn took place.
| Bolo Rei | |
On that occasion, thanks to a horsebean hidden in the cake, a «King» or a «Queen» chosen by chance and all the prohibitions are transgressed. They chose a «king for one day» when that person find the horsebean in his piece of cake.
It was in the Middle Ages that "Bolo Rei" became associated to the party of Epiphany. The Church started to attribute it another value, the one of the blessed and shared bread, but the tradition of the elected king survived. Formerly, in a lot of countries, the cake was cut according to a precise ritual, with songs and children's visit to several houses, where they asked for donations.
The traditional Bolo Rei is a cake of brioche mass, stuffed and garnished with a hundred sugar preserved dry fruit bits or perfumed liquor or orange tree flower.
Today, the habits were have changed: who gets the horsebean should offer a new cake and the gift (puppet, animal, amulet, etc.) allows representing the King or Queen.
Ingredients: |
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650 flour gr 40 gr of baker's ferment 150 butter gr or margarine 150 gr of crystallized fruits 125 gr of dry fruits ¼ of Lemon |
150 gr of sugar ¼ of Orange 4 eggs 1 rum dl or liqueur egg Yolk pricked Almonds Jelly |
Preparation:
Place on the stone of the table 150 flour gr. Open a cavity in the middle and put the ferment inside, undone in 1 dl of lukewarm water. Mix with the flour and form a ball. Do to the surface two blows in cross and leave the mass to leaven for 15 minutes.
Put the remaining flour (500gr) on the table, open a cavity in the middle and put the margarine inside, the sugar and it scrapes it of the peels of the lemon and orange.
Work these ingredients until they be in cream. Join the eggs, one to a, and soon after the mass with the ferment. Love and, if the consistency of the mass is too hard, add some milk. After these ingredients well kneaded, join the rum and incorporate it well in the mass. Mix the fruits, previously pricked, and knead again, forming a ball. Put the mass inside of a bowl sprinkled with flour, close it with a cloth and let to leaven for 5 hours.
Divide the mass as the size of the cakes that wants to do, form balls with the mass mouthfuls and open a hole to the middle, in circle form. Place the cakes in boards anointed with margarine and let to leaven during more 1 hour, to a temperature of 25º-30ºC. Paint with a brush the cakes with egg yolk and decorate them with crystallized fruits, pricked almonds and quadradinhos of sugar. Light to cook in medium oven.
After the cooked cakes, paint with a brush the fruits with jelly.
Páscoa (Easter)
Easter is the annual party celebrated by the Jews in memory of the exit from Egipto. The religion prescribes that, for a week from 14 to 21 of the month of Nissan (begining of Spring) the followers should refrain from any fermented food (alcohol, cereals, dry vegetables, etc.); on Easter day, the meal includes roasted lamb immolated according to the Jewish uses.
This party is also celebrated by the Christian religion, that on that day celebrates Jesus Christ's Resurrection. Easter day on the first Sunday after the first moon that followes to the equinox of the Spring, relapses between 22 of March and April 22. It is the time of the full renewal of Nature and as Easter it happens naturally to the abstinence of the Lent, numerous culinary traditions mark that party.
On the whole side, hard eggs, natural or coloured are typical. The habit of offering coloured eggs or decorations starts in Portugal, in the XVth century . The Easter omelette done with eggs «Requests» or put on Holy Friday, is garnished with bacon or similar to well mark the end of this period.
Traditionally, on Easter Sunday, we have a meat plate: generally kid goat or lamb, but a lot of times also Pig (roasted pig or ham). In some areas they includes in Easter menu a stuffed pie of several meats and eggs. The bread that was eaten on Easter Sunday was whiter than the bread homemade and a goody was considered.
The desserts of Easter time show an entire variety of special sweet ; the form of baskets with painted eggs of several colours, crowns with eggs, brioches and pies but above all the chocolate eggs and the almonds are the most representative.
as most of the cod plates in
Portugal, the cod is dry and salted.
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Preparation:
Prick 2 onions, the cloves of garlic and the bacon finely. Join them 50 margarine gr and colorau and 1 dl of white wine and season with thick salt and pepper.
Obtain the kid goat and clay it with the prepared.
Dispose in the fund of recipient to roast the remaining onions cut in slices. On these it places the kid goat, join a parsley branch and the parrot and let to be like this 24 hours, in fresh place.
The following day waters the kid goat with the remaining white wine and to the turn it disposes the potatoes cut at rooms. Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the remaining margarine cut in mouthfuls on the kid goat and the potatoes and take to roast in the oven, watering once in a while with the sauce that is going forming.
Accompany with lettuce salad, agrião and fried potatoes.
Chocolate in egg form, usually involving sweetened almonds
The almond can be substituted by a hazelnut, almond paste, chocolate or liqueur.
Candy made with a covered almond of hardened sugar, flat, white or coloured;
The covered almond of honey was already a candy much appreciated by the Greeks and Roman. The almond just it is made today is mentioned for the first time in 1220.
In that time, the pharmacists they involved in honey certain spices (anisette, cilantro seeds,) called «room spices», consumed to purify the breath and as digestive. When the sugar cane was introduced in Europe, they had an almond or a pumpkin or cucumbersud, covered with sugar. In Portugal the almonds are especially offered in the Passover but also for the occasion of the baptism , in the first communions and in the marriages.Up to 1850, the manufacture of almonds and was handmade, in suspended basins with a rotation movement to allow the sugar to cover the almonds in regular layers. Only in 1850 the first mechanical turbine was invented. After that, the process was improved (the liquid sugar is pulverised on top of the almonds and dried with hot forced air).
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Ingredients: |
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5
dl of milk |
Preparation:
Dissolve the ferment in some warm milk and, with 200 flour gr, make a mass. Let to leaven her.
However we works the remaining flour with the eggs, the sugar and the milk, until obtaining a very light mass, with plenty of body. Add the margarine later, salt, to herb-candy and the cinnamon.
Work well the mass and, finally, join it the ferment that was to leaven.
Love until the mass to come off of the hands and of the alguidar. Cover with a cloth and let to leaven during 2 at 5 hours in warm place.
Elapsed that time, divide the mass in balls and flatten them. On each one it places 1 or more hard eggs, according to the size of the base of the mass.
Hold the eggs with some mass ribbons. Paint with a brush with egg yolk and cook in hot oven.
Santos Populares (Popular Saints)
They are naturally popular parties. They take place between June 13 (Santo António) and June 29 (São Pedro).
They consist of streets parties with a lot of dancing, eating and drinking, being typical of our country, more precisaly St. António in the city of Lisbon, S. João in the city of Porto and S. Pedro in Sintra
Portuguese national plate, consisting of a soup prepared with olive oil (azeite), potatoes and green cabbage finely cut with garnished of slices with garlic, and accompanied with corn bread, olives and red wine. The Portuguese-cabbage,and green-dark and very perfumed, has to be cut in very fine ribbons
| Ingredients: | |
sardines onion peppers |
Oil and vinegar Salt |
Preparation:
The sardines are prepared in the simplest way: salted and roasted on the coal, accompanied by boiled potato and mixed salads (tomato, pimento and lettuce).
For accompaniment it can serve with potatoes cooked with skin and corn bread.
These are a great tradition of the city of Lisbon and of the country. They were already eaten in the XV Century and still today they are traditionally grilled outdoors, due to the strong aroma that they free when roasting.
Initially this "poor food" was the main plate of this popular festivals that are "Os Santos Populares".
This meal usually substitutes the sardines when the option is meat instead of fish.
Just as the sardines they are cooked in the same way: salted and grilled in the coal, accompanied by the same mixed salads.
Note:
It is normal to accompany all these meals with Sangria that is composed for: red wine, gaseous lemonade and fruit of the time (apple, orange, pear, peach and etc.) and suggar
Natal (Christmas)
Christmas
The Family party par excellence, Christmas associates the pagan festivities of the New Year and the religious celebration of Christ's birth. The common link of all these festivities is the present, the offer of a candy, of a goody, above all when it is done through one of the great illustrations of the popular myths (S. Martinho, in Belgium, in Germany and in Netherlands; S, Nicolau, in the North; in Portugal, the "Pai Natal"). An old habit established that godfathers and nuns offered a cake, a clown, a puppet or a simple spindle. The turn for the village houses done by the children is a very old habit. Prosperity votes and ritual songs translate her, in several offerings, essentially alimentary: goodies, dry fruits and cakes.
But Christmas is consecrated by a meal, whose composition and respected a ancient ritual. Manifestation of the narrow liaisons that they united the family cell, the meal of Christmas, in most countries of Europe, has always included (and it still includes today, frequently) a specific menu.
In Portugal the great dinner of the night of Christmas (24 to 25) keeps the traditions of the ceremonial meal very strongly.
Ingredients: |
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8 cuts of cod 4 Portuguese cabbages 16 big potatoes 8 hard eggs |
3 dl of oil 4 cloves of garlic Salt and pepper |
Preparation:
Cook the cod in boiled water during 15 to 20 minutes.
However, cook the cabbage eyes, the one that removed the external hard leaves.
In another recipient it cooks the potatoes with peel, previously washed.
Shell the cloves of garlic and cut them in thick slices. Take the oil to the fire and, as soon as it is hot, join the slices of garlic. Just let to explode.
Season the oil, out of the fire, with salt and pepper.
Serve the cod in a bar, the potatoes and the eggs shelled in other and the cabbages in a third recipient. Lie the oil in a bowl and serve accompanied with corn bread or with mixture bread.
Ingredients: |
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1 big turkey 150 gr butter or margarine 50 gr bacon 400 gr of pig meat 100 gr cold meat 150 gr ham |
200 gr of bread crumb 1,5 dl of milk 2 whole eggs 1 pickles tablespoon 1 tablespoon of olives |
3 carrots 2 onions 1 clove of garlic Parsley, salt and pepper White Wine |
Preparation:
Obtain the turkey as habitually. Go to the machine the ham, the bacon, the cold meat, the pig meat and the turkey crumbs.
To the part, prick an onion and cook it softly with 1 margarine tablespoon. Join to the pricked meats the garlic, parsley, the olives and the pricked pickles.
Add the crumb of softened bread in the milk and a cooked carrot and cut in ribbons. Join the whole eggs and season with salt and pepper. Stuff the crop of the turkey, sewing it the skin with a needle and line. Tie the turkey and place it in a board.
Light to roast in the oven with the remaining onion and carrots and parsley. To middle of the cookery it sprinkles with white wine. After the roasted turkey, remove the lines and serve with rice and carrots.
Same like "Dia dos Reis"
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Ingredients: |
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Preparation:
The bread is cut in fine slices and ribbon-if-him the hull. They go by the eggs milk shakes and they are going to cook in the sugar in pearl point, mixed with the butter.
They are served in cup, sprinkled with cinnamon and the remaining liquid sugar. They are decorated with crystallized cherries.
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Ingredients: |
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Salt Sugar and cinnamon or liquid sugar Oil to fry |
Preparation:
Undo the flour in some water, to which joined a pinch of salt. Add the remaining water and take to the fire to cook, always moving with a stick spoon, until the mixture to be very thick and it evaporates. Remove of the fire, let to cool a little and join the ferment and the eggs, one to a, beating among each addition.
Beat very well by hand, until forming bubbles.
Heat up the oil to a medium temperature and lie mass colheradas, letting to fry in soft fire and having taken care of to return the dreams constantly and to prick with a fork.
Let to be slippery on the brown paper and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon or water with calda of sugar.
Note: When the temperature is too elevated, remove the recipient of the fire and let to decrease it. This fry is delayed and it requests patience.
Generaly similar to the "Sonhos", it just differs for being the extended mass. |
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Preparation:
The soft eggs are made: becomes the sugar to the fire with water to cover and ferver until obtaining pearl point. Leaves of the fire, it cools, they join the yolks cut with a knife and it returns to the fire, always moving, until doing highway in the fund.
With the other yolks and the sugar they make her the layers, proceeding as for the fardels of eggs; of the remaining eggs they are made threads.
Arms in a round plate: a portion of threads of eggs is placed, giving it the lampreia form, that it should be coiled, with the round head and it releases and to finish with the sharpened tail. On the threads of eggsbecomes a layer of soft eggs. covers all with the layers of eggs, putting upon them (the smallest are for the tail).
In the place of the mouth enters a crystallized pear and the glass eyes are placed. It is decorated with white glacé gone by the syringe and you controlled silver. In the fund of the plate threads of eggs are spread.
