A feast of Iberian immersion in Portugal: the Cookbook

It’s a waste of any good cookbook to use it merely as a Rolodex for recipes, especially one based on a cuisine as vibrant, varied and volcanic as Portugal’s.

For old hands or newcomers to this fascinating country Portugal: The Cookbook will set the table for a feast of experiences

 It’s a waste of any good cookbook to use it merely as a Rolodex for recipes, especially one based on a cuisine as vibrant, varied and volcanic as Portugal’s.

Such a volume should at least be an excuse for a full-on dinner party such as one might expect at a mate’s home in Lisbon. You might serve authentic rustic dishes such as Holy Grail soup or sweet porridge with curdled pig’s blood and walnuts.

Portugal: The Cookbook, the latest in Phaidon’s international food bible series, also suggests the Algarve’s partridge with clams, numerous rabbit variations and a splendid array of offal.

However, since one of the 10 people on the tentative guest list admitted to pescetarianism, I shifted the foodie focus to its rich Atlantic seafood tradition.

A marinated tuna escabeche served cool, and, Netflix doco notwithstanding, an octopus stew from the Azores were first on the menu.

The pig’s ears and tails with garlic and coriander, cow’s bladder tripe and beans, and pig’s brains scrambled with egg could wait another day, as would ingredients like fried eels, limpets, dogfish and salt cod air bladder.

Let’s blame the supply chain for the shelves of the local Portuguese delis being rather bare of imported condiments.

Improvisation would be the name of the game.

One of the joys of Portuguese cooking, if not always for its subject peoples, has been the influence of its once numerous colonies.

Don’t expect many flavours directly from Mozambique, Goa or East Timor, but the history is there.

I mimicked the famous furnace stew from the Azores, simmered in a volcanic vent, with a chicken, pork, beef and chorizo “cozido”, or stew, in a slow cooker.

As well as the influence of an extended Atlantic coast on their culture and cuisine, the Portuguese also benefited from the incursions of the Phoenicians and Greeks, Moors and Iberian Jews. And as London-based chef Leandro Carreira stresses in his exhaustive 400+ page collection, the oldest nation-state in Europe and centuries of exploration brought “a global larder of ingredients to its shores”, including Nordic salt-cured cod.

Before turning its handsome pages, I had determined that sardines, salt cod, peri-peri chicken and custard tarts were off the menu due to their sheer predictability. I like to surprise my guests.

I veer by nature to earthy peasant food and was drawn to the author’s explanation of his country’s relative poverty, making it an early adopter of “nose-to-tail” eating and other ingenuities: “… with limited access to finer ingredients and a populace fed on the things the monarchy and elites rejected: stale bread, bad wine, vegetable trimmings and animal offal.”

The merriment began with a glass of fizzy Mateus Rose, which wasn’t too bad.

Portuguese offerings from the guests included a small bell, a tea towel and the promise of some costume jewellery.

I scored a six-pack of very drinkable Super Bock, and some Portuguese red wines, which vanished without a murmur.

Fear of Covid kept two invitees away at short notice, so I called in a foodie pal called Scot, who excels in Dutch oven dishes from South America’s grassy campo.

Before I could say “Voce e ben vindo” (you’re welcome), he insisted on bringing “bacalhau”, the famed Portuguese salted cod, strangely already soaking in his fridge.

He had his own recipe with potatoes and olives. But the next day, a Covid close contact stopped him from attending, so an even more eleventh-hour couple were rustled up.

My wife insisted on making a salt cod and chickpea salad, so there was no choice but to buy a large side of the preserved cod and feverishly soak it in numerous bowls of water to render it edible. It was one of the hits of the evening.

The first course, or “primeiro curso”, was a clear hot soup drained from the furnace stew, they are canny these Portuguese, and a red pepper and tomato and garlic cold soup. It was quite unlike a Spanish gazpacho, and the Iberian neighbours’ cuisines are not to be confused.

Portugal: The Cookbook

Our “prato principal” included the tuna and the octopus dish, whose taste and the smell was enhanced with ­cinnamon and “massa de pimento”, a sweet paprika preparation.

The only dud of the night was a dish of borlotti beans stewed with cabbage, and not surprisingly, it hardly compared with the rest.

A round of Portuguese trivia brought us to the desserts, which occupy more than 100 pages of the cookbook.

I was running low on time so from the Algarve made an orange flan which included butter, sugar and ten egg yolks. I also cheated a little and bought some pastries from a charming Portuguese bakery.

Apart from the beans, little food was left. We ended the evening having learned a bit, and eaten more.

I have been to Spain several times but was constantly waylaid before reaching Portugal. It’s a mistake I shall not repeat.

For old hands or newcomers to this fascinating country Portugal: The Cookbook will set the table for a feast of experiences and provide, if you need one, an excellent excuse for a memorable and different dinner party.

 Christopher Zinn is a journalist and enthusiastic home cook.

Portugal: the Cookbook

By Leandro Carreira
Phaidon, Cooking

448pp, $79.95