A Taste of Portugal Part 2

Restaurant with a view

Another day trip we had was to Serra da Arrabida  . First stop a visit to the village of Azeitao...home of the Queijo Azeitao and some special Tortas de Azeitao. Of course we needed to wash it all down with something so 2 sorts of muscatel were on offer,   a young one followed by a more mature version.  Last time I had muscatel was some homemade stuff on a Greek island camped in someone’s vege patch about 30 years – it was pretty terrible. The Azeitao versions were much more palatable.

Queijo de Azeitao

Tortas de Azeitao

Later in the day we stopped for lunch at a restaurant perched high above a beach where a few surfers were trying their luck. On the menu for starters was mussels and the area speciality choco frito – fried cuttlefish.....delicious. Then came another speciality Cataplana, cooked in a special dish, it was a lovely stew of fish, mussels and other shellfish.

Mussels

Luis serving the Cataplana

Choco frito

And finally, no trip to Lisboa is complete without a visit to Pasteis de Belem for some Portuguese custard tarts. These are the very special ones from the shop in Belem where they have been making them since  1837. Usually there is a long queue of tourists outside the shop to buy them over the counter, but it is nicer to enjoy them sitting at a table inside the cafe. Someone told me that they invented these tarts to use up all the egg yolks they had left over after using the egg whites to starch nun's habits. That is just one theory though.   Bon Appetit!

Pasteis de Belem

A Taste of Portugal : Part 1

The other half of our recent trip to Europe was spent in Portugal.  Our son lives in Portugal and has Portuguese in-laws so we get to taste the real food of Portugal and not just the tourist fare.

My favourite dish from my last visit to Lisbon was Sardinhas grelhadas (grilled sardines), however May is not the season for fresh sardines. Niko’s father in law however found some frozen ones and cooked them just for me! They are cooked on a special griller – the sardines are sprinkled with salt and placed on a rack over an electric element which is suspended over a tray filled with water. Never seen anything like it in Australia but it does a superb job. . 

first course..........

and just in case you were still hungry

Peniche harbour

A few days later we went on a day trip to Peniche and had lunch in a restaurant within sight of the fishing port and we could see fishing boats at work not far offshore.  I figure the grilled mackerel  that I had was as fresh as you can get. It was absolutely delicious but I forgot to take a picture. This was the view.

Obidos

On the way back to Lisbon that evening, we called in at the World Heritage listed town of Obidos. The speciality of Obidos is Ginginja - a sour cherry flavoured liqueur. In Obidos, the favourite way to have it is in a cup made of chocolate. So as the sign says, drink the ginja and eat the cup. Yummm!

Perfectly Pickled Pumpkin from the Patch

Thanks to River Cottage Winter series on television last week, I found a new way to use some of the many pumpkins I harvested this year. I used a couple of butternut pumpkins, chopped them into cubes and then blanched them for a couple of minutes.

The cubes were then packed into a couple of jars.








The pickling liquid was made from a blended mix of onion, garlic, oil, lemon zest and juice and a little bit of chilli. This blend was cooked over medium heat with turmeric, peppercorns, mustard powder, salt, sugar, vinegar and more lemon juice for 5 minutes........then pour over the cubes. That's it.

Tasted it yesterday at lunch and it was pretty tasty. No excuses to let excess pumpkins go to waste anymore!

Baguette anyone?

 The Preserving Patch has been very quiet for a while as we have been on holiday. I tried to remember to take photos wherever I could so that I could report on our food adventures but it has taken me a while to get around to start writing about them.

There is something about markets in France that farmer's markets in Australia don't quite match. Perhaps its this saucisson man with the fag hanging out his mouth offering tastings of his wares.


Or a stall selling massive blocks of nougat.

We chanced upon this market in the old town of Annecy .....not to be confused with Annecy le Vieux (which translates to the old Annecy) and is just a suburb. Annecy is not far from the Swiss border and Geneva, sits on the edge of a beautiful glacial green lake with snow capped alps in the distance.

The thing is....how do you choose which cheese to buy when there is this much choice?

 And what to choose for lunch to go with the bread?

 Better have some fruit to finish off with.  What a treat!

Bottling some of the apple crop, roasted capsicums in oil and how is that Emmental doing?

It's been raining today so a good opportunity to stew up some of the apples which have been sitting in the fridge since I picked them. By bottling them in Fowlers Vacola jars, they will last for a long time, years even, so it is a very energy efficient way to preserve. There are 10 jars now waiting to cool down before they get put in the store room.

Yesterday I picked 10 green capsicums while weeding my way around the garden. That gave me a good opportunity to try one of the recipes I have been saving up. Actually I kept on weeding and my kitchen assistant Pico made the recipe instead.  Roasted capsicums in oil. First roast the capsicums until you can peel the skin off (actually this wasn't possible to do so they ended up still with the skin on) then chop them up and put them in olive oil with some spices- coriander, peppercorns, garlic and bay leaves. We had to try them for lunch today. Tasted pretty good but it seems like a lot of capsicums to just make one jar.

And finally the Emmental that I made a few weeks ago has spent a week in the cheese fridge then 2 weeks in a warm room so that the bacteria in the cheese are able to multiply. The cheese swells up and now I have waxed it and put it in the cheese fridge to mature for a few months.

More cheese from the Pyrenees

The old and ......

Last May I made a second wheel of Pyrenees Pepper cheese but haven't actually tried it until a few days ago. Now it is 11 months old and I think it is my best cheese ever. It is very crumbly and has a fantastic flavour - of similar quality to a Mersey Valley cheese from Tasmania, an aged cheddar. It is a slightly strange colour as the peppers leach a bit of pinkish/purple colour. I was so pleased with the outcome that I set to and have made another wheel this weekend. It is now drying on a board for a few days before I wax it.

the new

Also this weekend I picked my huge quince crop....6.....and so stewed them up with some apples and bottled them for another day.

Making the most of the last zucchinis of summer and getting ready for Easter

The zucchini plants in the vege patch are looking like they are on their last legs although still producing a few giants. Last week I found a recipe for Zucchini (courgette) chutney in a library book so thought I would give it a go. It was a slightly unusual recipe in that the zucchini slices had to be salted for a couple of hours first before washing, drying then adding to the mix of onions, tomatoes, red wine and malt vinegar, sugar and cinnamon. It was meant to have grated orange rind in it as well but I left that until last as it meant going out in to the garden to get an orange, and then I forgot to do it.

After cooking it all down for a couple of hours it had thickened up and was ready to bottle. Ready to have with my lunch.

Also yesterday morning I made a loaf of Panettone bread ready for Easter. It is a really a Christmas bread but it is so delicious that I like to make it at Easter time too!This is the yeast version not the sourdough version which I made once before and which ended up being as solid as a brick!