Pasteis de Bacalhau

Kate has always loved these, and we ate some fantastic pasteis in Belem, Portugal. She really wanted these for her birthday so I decided to learn how to make them. It was a success!  --Mark

Ingredients

10 ounces salted cod, preferably thick pieces
14 ounces russet potatoes, unpeeled
1 small onion, very finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
3 large eggs
Vegetable or canola oil, for frying

Instructions

Rinse the cod well to wash away some of the surface salt. Place it in a roomy bowl, cover it with cold water, and set aside, changing the water 4 to 5 times for a total of 12 hours (for very thin cuts) to 24 hours (for thicker cuts). Before cooking, taste a few strands to make sure it’s not overly salty, although it should retain some saltiness or the resulting cod cakes will be bland.

Boil the potatoes (preferably in their skins, so the potatoes don’t absorb water). Peel the potatoes and mash or sieve them. Set aside.

Meantime, simmer the cod in enough boiling water to cover until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the cod, discard the skin and bones, and flake the fish as much as you can with your fingers or a fork to reduce it to threads. (The proper way of doing this is to place the flaked cod inside a clean cloth, fold it and squeeze and pound the contents of the cloth with your fists. In this way you will have mashed cod.)

Mix the cod with the mashed potatoes and add the eggs, 1 by 1, and then the onion and parsley. Taste and, if desired, season with salt. You may not need to add any, as the cod itself retains quite a lot of saltiness, in spite of being soaked and boiled. The mixture should be quite stiff, enabling a spoon to stand up in it. If you find it excessively dry, add one or two tablespoons of milk. Allow this to cool completely before deep frying.

With two tablespoons, shape the fishcakes like large eggs and place in the hot oil (370°F/190°C), turning them three or four times to get nicely browned all over. When cooked, lift them with a big fork or slotted spoon and place them on kitchen paper, to absorb excess fat. Go on molding and frying until you use up the mixture.

Notes:

https://leitesculinaria.com/7586/recipes-portuguese-salt-cod-fritters.html

This is another recipe that does really well in the deep fryer.

Shrimp Mozambique

This is one of our go-to appetizers. It is quick and easy to make and is incredibly delicious. Like most of our Portuguese recipes, it has that "inexact" feel, but it makes it that much easier to modify to your liking. Make a lot and enjoy! -Mark

Ingredients:

3 T butter

minced garlic

crushed red pepper

3 T olive oil

salt

2 lb shrimp

Directions:

Melt butter in a large frying pain or pot. Saute garlic and crushed red pepper. Add olive oil and continue to heat. Mix in shrimp and cook until done. Salt to taste.

Notes:

Don't forget the bread to sop up all the wonderful and delicious juice. The large (not jumbo) shrimp work the best, but medium shrimp aren't bad. You can use the precooked shrimp, but the overall flavor may not be quite as good. We recently tried this over pasta and it was wonderful.

Portuguese Stuffing

I am not a big stuffing person. This stuffing is out-of-this-world amazing. Well, I guess it's technically a "dressing" since we don't actually stuff the turk--who cares?! It's awesome! It goes perfectly with the Portuguese turkey we make at Thanksgiving, and it is awesome as a leftover. One of our friends said it's "good but not traditional." I'll take good over traditional any day of the week. --Mark

Ingredients:

bread, hard

olive oil

garlic, minced

onions, chopped

crushed red pepper

tomato sauce

chourico

red wine

salt

giblets

turkey drippings

Instructions:

A few days before making the stuffing, break bread into chunks. Chop giblets and chourico in a food processor. Make sure the chunks are very small. In a pot, heat olive oil. Saute garlic and onions until soft. Add crushed red pepper and heat through. Stir in tomato sauce. Add giblets and chourico and cook through. Add salt. Once the meat is cooked, add in red wine and simmer.

Stir bread chunks into sauce until it is all covered. Put into greased roasting pan or baking dish. Place in oven with turkey for one hour, basting frequently with the turkey drippings.

Note:

One variation is to soak the dried bread in water and then squeeze out the excess water through a colander. Then add it to the sauce. Spread the bread mixture into a baking pan before cooking.

Roast Potatoes

These Portuguese potatoes are a regular side dish at our Thanksgiving meals, and have been at Stacy's since she was a girl. One way to make sure they taste absolutely fantastic is to roast them to the point that they are just about burned. We won't tell the story about how Zelia burned them one year and Stacy went on and on about how great they were and kept asking why they were so good that year. Oh, would you look at that. I just told it. --Mark

Ingredients:

potatoes, peeled

onions

crushed red pepper

garlic, crushed

1 small can tomato sauce

red wine

2 T oil

water

salt

Instructions:

Oil the bottom of a baking pan and pour in the onions, red pepper, garlic, tomato sauce, and red wine. Cut the peeled potatoes into roughly uniform chunks and place them in the pan. Add about 1-2 cups of water and sprinkle with salt. Cover. Bake for about 45 minutes at 350. Continue to check on the potatoes and uncover for the last 15 minutes for browning. If you are cooking a turkey or other meat you can baste the potatoes with the meat drippings.

Feijao Assado (Portuguese Baked Beans)

Cooking dry beans can be such a pain sometimes, but this recipe is worth the work. These baked beans are like nothing you've had before. They are fantastic and go well with a lot of Portuguese meals, as well as any other time you'd like some great, baked beans. They end up a lot more like Mexican refried beans, just so you know. --Mark

Ingredients:

1 lb dry red kidney beans

1 onion, chopped

garlic, minced

crushed red pepper

3 T olive oil

salt and pepper

1 can crushed tomatoes

Instructions:

Soak beans overnight. Drain beans. Put in a pot with all the ingredients and mix well. Cook over low heat until tender, probably for 1-2 hours. Add water as necessary until beans are very tender. Remove beans with a slotted spoon and place in a roasting pan with about 2 cups of the broth. Mash them well. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, or until done. Stir frequently.

Notes:

The broth from the pot can be saved to make soup. Also, you can top the beans with bacon if desired.

Stuffed Mackerel

Stacy's mom can get mackerel by the bucket in New England and she made this for us one trip up there. We had to come home and make it almost immediately. The recipe I'm transcribing is on a 2 inch by 2 inch post it note with arrows and circles all over it. It's a wonder I can decipher it at all. It would work in any oily, whole fish. --Mark

Ingredients:

mackerel

onion, chopped

garlic, minced

crushed red pepper

olive oil

3 T tomato sauce, baby clams

bread crumbs or stale bread

parsley

Instructions:

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add red pepper and heat through. Add baby clams (drained) but save the liquid on the side. Once the clams are heated, add the tomato sauce and heat.

Moisten bread crumbs or bred with clam juice and water as necessary. Mix with mixture from above. Stuff fish.

Place fish in an oiled baking dish. Bake at 350 for about 3o minutes until flaky.

Clams with Rice

Stacy's aunt Noemia makes this dish for EVERY family gathering. Every one. It's almost a joke, until you taste it and think "you can cook this for me every day." I tried getting the recipe from her and it was worse than getting it from Stacy's mother--ingredients all over the place, directions out of order, a lot of "you remember when you added the onion? Before that . . ." at the end of it all, we got a great recipe, though. --Mark

Ingredients:

large can of clams
1 onion

2 cups rice

2 chicken bouillon cubes (or 1 Knorr)

parsley

1 packet Goya seasoning with saffron

olive oil

butter (optional)

Instructions:

Cook rice in water and clam juice, reserving some clam juice on the side.

Chop clams. Saute in olive oil with bouillon and some clam juice. Add Goya seasoning and onions, cooking through. Add parsley.

Add cooked rice to clams and mix. Add butter if desired.

Sopa de Ervilha (Pea Soup)

This is a recipe Stacy picked up in Portugal and it is more typical of Continental cooking. It is very tasty, even if you aren't a big pea fan. --Mark

Ingredients:

peas

potatoes

onion

2 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth

1 pint cream

Instructions:

Cook and puree the first 3 ingredients. Add in broth, and cream. Add water as necessary.

Portuguese Soup

Soups are very central to Portuguese cooking, and this one is the most basic of all. Stacy grew up eating this soup almost every night with dinner. Ask her. She'll tell you all about it. --Mark

Ingredients:

meat (chicken, pork, etc.)

chourico

potatoes

collards

red kidney beans

water

salt

onion

Instructions:

Boil meats with onion and chourico. When almost cooked, add potatoes, collards, and beans. Salt to taste. Continue cooking until everything is done.

Sopa de Estrelinha

"Soup of Little Stars" is the Portuguese equivalent of mom's chicken soup. This is great when you feel sick, but not if your stomach is upset because it's got some kick. It will clear out your sinuses, though. You can make it with any little pastas, but the stars are the best. It just feels right that way. --Mark

Ingredients:

onion, chopped

olive oil

garlic, crushed

crushed red pepper

tomato sauce

water

chicken bouillon

cooked chicken

star pasta

Instructions:

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add crushed red pepper and stir for about a minute. Add tomato sauce and heat through. Add water and chicken bouillon. Bring to a boil. Add in cooked chicken and pasta. Cook until pasta is soft.

Caldo Verde

This is another staple in a long line of Portuguese recipes. It's incredibly simple and wonderfully delicious. We usually have an abundance of collards from our garden so it makes sense to do something like this with them. Again, Portuguese recipe = no exact measurements. --Mark

Ingredients:

Potatoes

Collards, sliced thinly

Chourico

Olive oil

Instructions:

Fry slices of chourico on the side. Boil potatoes and "mash badly," without draining the water. Add collards and slices of fried chorico. Cook until the collards are al dente. Remove from heat and add olive oil to taste.

Molho de Feijao

This is a very standard Portuguese soup, and the first one our daughter ever made. She still loves to make and eat it. As with nearly all our Portuguese recipes, add as much or as little of everything as you like. Experiment. --Mark

Ingredients:

Chourico

olive oil

2 large onions

tomato sauce or crushed tomato

garlic

crushed red pepper

3 cans kidney beans, undrained

2 cups elbow macaroni

salt

parsley

Instructions:

Fry the chourico in olive oil. When almost done add the chopped onion and saute. Add tomatoes or tomato sauce, red pepper, and garlic. Add beans and cover with water. Cook for a few minutes and then mash. Continue to boil. Add macaroni and boil until done. Salt to taste and garnish with parsley.

Bolos Levedos Acorianos (Azorean Muffins)

This is the best recipe for these tasty treats. I couldn't believe how much they tasted like bolos levedos from Tony's the first time I made them. I've got to make these again soon. . . . --Mark

Ingredients:

1/2 cup whole milk at room temperature
1/2 cup + 1 sugar
2-1/2 tsp instant yeast
4-1/3 cups unbleached bread flour
2 eggs, beaten
9 T sweet butter, softened
1/2 tsp zest of lemon, grated then minced fine
2 T vodka (or Portuguese moonshine if you can get it)
1/8 tsp salt
water as necessary

Instructions:

Mix the instant yeast into the warm milk and set aside.

Sift the flour and sugar into a large bowl.

Form a well in the middle of the flour/sugar combination add the milk/yeast combination and mix it in a little. Add the eggs, butter, lemon zest, vodka and salt. Mix together until it forms a rough dough ball. If you need to add a few drops of water to make it gather into a ball, do so in small increments. Once the ball forms, cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 15 minutes. This allows the dough to hydrate evenly.

Turn the dough ball out on to a floured surface and knead for 12 minutes. If you need instruction on kneading refer to the instructions on kneading in the homemade naan recipe here.

After kneading cover the dough with plastic film and allow it to rest for 10 minutes.

Gently form the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled container that will allow it to increase to twice its size. Press the dough down gently and then cover with the container cover or plastic wrap. Mark the container with tape where the dough is and allow it to rise to twice its size (30 minutes to 4 hours).

Turn the dough back out onto your floured surface and divide in to 9 equal sized pieces. Gently form each piece into a smooth ball and cover with plastic wrap and let rest 15 minutes.

Pat each ball into flat patty. Let rest 15 minutes covered with plastic wrap.

Place a flat griddle over medium-low flame and allow it to heat up.

Flatten and expand each piece of dough again. Let rest 15 minutes or more covered with plastic wrap. You want it to rise a little bit again.

When they are ready, place a patty on the heated griddle. Cook it SLOWLY on medium-low heat, or the outside will burn before the inside is cooked properly. Turn over when nicely browned, remove when evenly browned on both sides and cooked through. It'll take a little testing at first but is easy once you sort it out. Eventually, if your griddle is large enough you can cook four at a time.

Notes:

I used Irish whiskey since I had that on hand and it worked quite well. My mother-in-law tells me it smells the same anyway.

Recipe from Foodbuzz.

Bolos Levedos (Portuguese Sweet Muffins)

If you've never had fresh bolos levedos from Fall River, you really haven't had a really good muffin. Here is a recipe from Stacy's mother, originally given in the traditional Portuguese style. --Mark

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 pkg yeast in warm water
milk
lemon rind (optional)

Instructions:

Proof the yeast for about 10 minutes. Mix all ingredients and knead the dough. Add milk or flour to the desired consistency. Let rise until it doubles. Roll out the dough until thin and then cut large circles. Cook over a hot skillet until browned on both sides.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

We discovered this masa recipe when we went too long between visits to Massachusetts to replenish our supplies. When done right, it tastes just like the real thing. --Mark

Ingredients:

2/3 cup milk
1 1/3 eggs
1 1/8 T butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp yeast

Instructions:

Add all ingredients to your bread machine according to the directions. Bake on sweet bread setting if available.

Notes:

This makes a 1 1/2 lb loaf. We use a large farm-fresh egg instead of trying to measure out 1/3 of an egg, although we've done it that way, too.

Portuguese White Bread

This is a recipe we have made countless times in the bread machine, and it is fabulous every time. It tastes just like authentic Portuguese bread, and that's a really good thing. --Mark

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 tsp bread machine yeast

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in the bread machine pan in the listed order. Program machine for large, white bread. Enjoy!

Notes:

This will make a 2 lb loaf. You can use a mix of regular and bread flour, but bread flour gives it a lighter, more authentic flavor.

Portuguese Roasted Potatoes

We went out on a limb and made these for the first time for friends. They were SO good. Very easy to do and very tasty. Be sure to let them get really brown so they have that crispy edge. --Mark

Ingredients:

6 - 8 Potatoes (peeled, pierced and cut in half if large)
1 - 2 Links Chourico, (cut up)
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes
Onion (peeled and sliced)
Garlic (minced)
2 Bay Leaves
Salt
Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper
Paprika
Can of Beer or Red Wine

Instructions:

In deep frying pan add all ingredients except potatoes and chourico and simmer for 20 minutes. Place potatoes and chourico in roasting pan. Pour tomato mixture on potatoes. Cover and cook at 350° for about 1 hour, basting occasionally. When potatoes are almost done remove cover, baste, and cook to brown.

Notes:

As with all good Portuguese recipes, most of the spices are "to taste." We like things spicy so we used a large amount of garlic, red pepper, etc. We made the potatoes with the beer and they turned out very well.

Papo Secos (Portuguese Rolls)

You haven't lived until you've eaten a paposeco. Eat them with fish, dip them in your meat drippings, make a cheese and pepper sandwich, or just eat them warm from the oven. I was so excited when I found this recipe for them, and even more excited when they passed the Portuguese mother-in-law test. --Mark

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2 cups lukewarm water
1 package active dry yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon lard

Instructions:

In measuring cup, dissolve sugar in 1/2 cup lukewarm warm. Sprinkle in yeast and let stand for 10 minutes.

In large bowl, blend flour and salt. Using fingers, rub in lard until well blended.

Stir yeast mixture vigorously with fork and stir into flour mixture. Gradually mix in remaining 1 1/2 cups luke-warm water to make stiff dough.

Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Gather into ball and place in lightly greased bowl, turning to grease all over. Cover and let rise in draft-free place for 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Punch down dough and divide in eighteen pieces. On well-floured board, using palm of hand, lightly flatten pieces into 3-inch rounds. Place side of hand down center of dough; press firmly without seperating dough. Fold sides in to center and pinch ends to form slight points; arrange about 2 inches apart on well-grease baking sheets. Dust with flour. Cover and let rise in draft-free place for 45 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.

Bake on sheet at a time on top rack in 500F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until buns are well browned and sound hollow when tapped on bottom. Transfer to wire racks.

Notes:

I have lard on hand for seasoning our cast iron pans. This is the one recipe where I use it for cooking. Given that these rolls originated in a country that uses every part of the pig, I think the lard is crucial for authentic taste.

Portuguese Rice

Recently we've discovered a lot of great recipes for rice--Mexican rice, Mediterranean rice--and now we've found a great recipe for Portuguese rice. This recipe is from Fall River's native son, Emeril Lagasse. He cooks with chourico. --Mark

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1 1/2 cups long-grain white rice

Instructions:

In a 4-quart medium saucepan heat the oil over high heat until hot. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, 4 minutes. Add the garlic, salt, red pepper, and bay leaf and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the water, parsley and cilantro and bring to a boil. Add the rice and stir well. When the liquid returns to a boil, stir again, then cover the pot and reduce the heat to low. Cook the rice undisturbed for 20 minutes, or until the liquid is dissolved and the rice is tender.

Let rice stand for 5 minutes undisturbed before fluffing with a fork. Serve immediately.

Portuguese Steaks

We are infrequent beef eaters, but this exception is well worth it. To complete the ambience we put on Portuguese Fado music and drink Portuguese soda called Sumol. Portuguese steak night is a family favorite for sure. --Mark

Ingredients:

Steaks (cube steaks work best)
Vinha de Alhos (Portuguese Marinade)
Molho de Vilão (Portuguese Gravy for Steak or Chops)

Instructions:

Marinate the steaks in the vinha de alhos for several hours. Grill or pan fry. Make the molho de vilão to serve with the steaks.

Notes:

These are super tasty, so serve with bread for the delicious gravy it naturally makes. For a true Portuguese feast, lay the steak on a bed of rice boiled with chicken bouillon. Top the steak with a slice of red pepper and a fried egg. Serve with a simple salad of shredded lettuce and Kalamata olives, and steak fries.