Chicken piri piri

From Delicious Magazine
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 small red pepper
50ml olive oil
4 red chillies
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp dried oregano or chopped fresh oregano leaves
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Juice 2 lemons
1/2 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt flakes
6 free-range, skin-on, bone-in chicken legs (drumsticks and thighs attached)

Heat the oven 190°C/170°C fan/ gas 5. Halve and deseed the pepper, brush with a little of the oil, put in a tin and roast until soft (about 25 minutes). Peel the skin if it comes off easily; leave on if it doesn’t. Chop roughly, then crush in a pestle and mortar (see tip). Remove the pepper.

Deseed the chillies, chop finely and put in the mortar with the garlic, oregano and chilli flakes. Pound to a paste, then add the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, salt, remaining oil and crushed pepper.

Put the chicken into a broad shallow dish and pour on most of the marinade. Turn to coat, cover with cling film and put in the fridge for 4 hours (or overnight ideally), turning a couple of times. Bring to room temperature before cooking.

Heat the grill to high and arrange the chicken on the grill pan, skin-side up. Put the grill pan 10cm from the heat and grill for 12 minutes per side, reducing the heat to medium halfway through. Baste a few times with the juices or a little reserved marinade.

Move the chicken another 10cm from the heat and grill for 5 minutes on each side. It should be cooked through (make sure there are no traces of pink), sizzling and golden.

Serve immediately with a lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad and fried potatoes or coarse rustic bread.

Cataplana seafood stew

From Traditional Portuguese Cookery
Serves 4

Ingredients
200g of monkfish
200g of white grouper
200g of snapper
150g of shrimp
150g of fresh clams, cleaned
100g of chorizo
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 tomatoes
1 pepper
200ml of oil
200ml of white wine
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Season all of the fish with salt. Peel the onions and garlic, chop up the garlic and cut the onions into half moons. Wash the tomatoes and slice it. Cut the peppers into strips without the white skin and seeds. Thinly slice the chorizo.

Place half of the onion, garlic, pepper, tomato and chorizo into the “Cataplana”. Add the bay leaf and season with a little salt and pepper. Sautee at medium heat until softened. Add the fish and cover with the rest of the onion, garlic, tomato, pepper and chorizo, adding the parley. Add the oil and white wine. Close the cataplana and cook the mixutre for 20 minutes at low heat.

After adding the clams and the shrimp. Let it cook gently for another 10 minutes, then the mixture and place the Cataplana on the table. Serve with boiled potatoes.

“A Cataplana is an item of cookware used to prepare Portuguese seafood dishes, popular on the country’s Algarve region. It is traditionally made of copper and shaped like two clamshells hinged at one end and able to be sealed using a clamp on either side of the assembly. The cataplana was invented by Armando Luz (1927-2002), better knowned by its nickname, “Pató”. “Pató” was an artist that work crafting the copper and the stainless steel, and was recognized with an award back were he lived in Portugal, with the key of the town and a silver medal that was offered to him due to his contribution to the Algarve. He was also the inventor of the machine to make cataplanas using stainless steel and was the only one who produced such a product.”

Obviously I don’t have a cataplana and so I used my cast iron pot instead. The stew is effectively a lighter version of a rich tomato based stew (i.e. with a can of tomatoes thrown in) and its the white wine that’s the star of this dish. You can use any combination of fish for this.

Ribatejo “Stone” soup

Ingredients

1kg dry red beans
750g potatoes
200g belly pork
2 pork ears
1 black sausage
1 meat sausage
1 fainheira – Portugese sausage made from wheat flour, pork fat and spice
1 big onion
2 cloves of garlic
3 soup spoon of olive oil
1 bay leaf
fresh chopped coriander
piri piri to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Soak the red beans for 24 hours Scrape, wash and season thickly with salt pork ears, leaving them for four hours. Wash off the salt and boil them inside the water with all other meat and sausages, chopped onion, garlic and bay leaf. Add salt and pepper, if needed. Take out the all meat out from the water when half cooked and save.

To the remaining water add olive oil, soaked beans and cook. When the beans becomes soft, peel potatoes, cut them in cubes and add to the beans. Check the water level and spices.

Cut the pre cooked meat into small pieces and add to the pan with beans when the potatoes are cooked. Check the spices and add if necessary. If you like, add few drops of piri piri and let it cook for a bit.

Serve hot sprinkled with freshly chopped coriander.

I am reminded of one of my favourite ladybird books when I was young when I saw this recipe in the Portuguese cookbook that I brought back from Lisbon.

Essentially the story is about a tramp convincing an old lady that he can make soup from stone by getting to add more and more ingredients gradually. Anyway, as I didn’t have all the ingredients, I made this without some of the sausages in the recipe (I used farinheira (spoils from Lisbon) and chorizo) and clearly I didn’t use pig’s ears! It’s essentially a nice warming meaty soup.

Portugese Cabbage Soup

From The Hairy Bikers

Ingredients
2 fat onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
60ml/2¼fl oz olive oil
1 chorizo sausage
6 large potatoes
1.5 litres/2 pints 13fl oz good vegetable or chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 bay leaves
large bunch of greens or cabbage
smoked paprika and olive oil, for dressing
Preparation method
Gently fry the onions and garlic in the olive oil until softened and translucent.
Chop the chorizo into small chunks and add to the pan with the onion.
Fry the onions and sausage for a few more minutes and then add the diced potatoes. They will absorb all the flavour from the sausage.
Transfer the mixture to a large pan, add the stock, seasoning and bay leaves, and cook until the potatoes are soft.
Meanwhile, very finely chop the cabbage (alternatively, buy a cabbage-shredding machine from the market as we did).
When the potatoes are ready, mash them into the broth to make a thick base. Blanch the greens in boiling water for one minute to take off any bitterness, drain, then add to the simmering broth.
Add as much cabbage as the broth will support – if you want heavy soup add loads of greens, if lighter, add less.
Simmer for a few minutes. The soup will go the colour of jade.
Mix the smoked paprika with some olive oil to make a dressing, and swirl this red magic into the vibrant green soup. Serve with some rustic country bread.