Real estate is a bitch. Earlier this year I thought it might be good to have a swing at this business and make my hobby of house-perving into a money earner. House perving is an art. I have a friend who has drawn up architectural plans and with full landscaping designs based on what he would do if his random-house-favourite in Bondi happened to fall into his hands one day. No doubt the neighbours think he´s been sizing up the place for a robbery, for the last four years, or perhaps they have concluded, correctly, that he is simply a house pervert.
Anyway, back when I was looking for a house in 2007 I would meet lots of other people looking for a house … in cafés, at the markets, at the pousada juventude in Lousã… Central Portugal was teeming with foreigners on holiday-house-perves. Now I meet none. This is not the only reason my brief foray into real estate has not been a success. Firstly, I broke the golden rule of being a pseudo estate agent: I became emotionally involved with the clients. They became my friends. I liked their houses, I liked their dogs, I liked them. And we all know that a normal real estate person doesn´t do any gratuitous caring because in order to actually sell houses one must devote 110% of one´s soul to selling.
So back to being a fully-committed-builder-blogger it is for me…
But if you happen to thinking of following me in this crazy pastry-filled lazy life, and buying a house in Portugal, then I would like to share with you these three little house-gems I found. Three different ideas, three different concelhos, three different prices but with one thing in common. Three very nice honest owners who just want to move on.
Let´s start with this little beauty in Mosteiro, Pedrogão Grande. I discovered the cutsey little village of Mosteiro when I first moved here during my rampant Sunday drives. It´s tucked away in the middle of a quiet little forest, a short detour from the best bread kept secret of Vila Facaia. It´s a picturesque medium sized village with two cafés and and rather decent restaurant located at a flat grassed river beach with a charming bridge and plenty of shade. This village even has a bandstand (my dad just loved bandstands), and I strongly suspect it has recycling bins (which, believe-you-me is a clear sign of civilisation. I envy people who live in villages with recycling bins).
The house is for sale for €43k. For this price I can´t quite work out how Sergio is making any money out of it because it is a recently renovated stone cottage. OK maybe he inherited it and spent €39,000 doing it up. But let´s not look a gift horse in the mouth.´Tis indeed a charm-packed little two storey one bedder, with renovated bathroom and kitchen, heating in the ground floor kitchen, small walled patio for the barbie, pushbike, plants and winter woodpile. In other words, a low maintenance, with all the facilities, nothing more to spend, weekender and summer holiday house… about two minutes walk from the river pool with café, icecream and rather tempting looking restaurant.
The owner, Sergio, is a local schoolteacher and antiques collector. We met at the Figueiró Vinhos Velharias fair. So the house is filled with really nice furniture and interesting bits. This makes the place even more special, because it´s unusual for Portuguese who most often like their things new and shiny. The antiques work so nicely with the stone interior… well if it were me I´d be negotiating a price with contents included. Too easy.
The next one is the paradise I really wanted when I was looking but didn´t have the money for. It´s €55k, a 120m2 ruin on one hectare (10,000 m2 or almost 2 and a half acres, thank you sophie 
), and if you can´t imagine that, well it´s about a 20 minute walk around the circumference and pretty much what you see in the pic above minus the background mountains). It´s located in a gobsmackingly beautiful valley about 5 minutes outside of Figueiró Dos Vinhos. Your nearest neighbours, about 1km away, would be the rather groovy dutch couple who run Quinta da Fonte, a nice eco-holiday type arrangement, which might give you some ideas about what to do with your place. One hectare of land has potential. You could plant more olives (there are already about 50), more fruit, or plants trees for timber. You could have sheep, horses (although the terrain is quite steep in places) or 5000 chickens. With no neighbours, you could do what you liked. The ruin itself begs for a spacious, passive solar, low impact, simple stone design. The water supply is ridiculously good, with a small river running through the property, two wells and about another 4 tanks. The last time I visited, Figueiró council were running “company” water along the road anyway. The electricity is about a 25m connection.
So peaceful, so beautiful… I think it´s a very precious little spot. You´d want to have at least another €70k to get the house done … but after that, it would be Gins and Tonic on the balcony overlooking the garden in perfect serenity for ever.
Option number three is actually three and four because there are two of them. They´re in Castaneira de Pêra, which is a little disneyland town created by the Mayor of Big Things. Castaneira is home to a Big Fake Grass Rat, Four Big Ugly Things on Roundabouts (on the bright side there are several Nice Big Old Mansions one Megalith Pink Magnolia) and one Very Big Pool. My very cool niece, when visiting, named the pool succintly: ”Mega Pool”.
Mega Pool, aka Praia das Rocas attracts hordes of sweaty punters from all about who are perfectly happy to queue for an hour before opening time in order to secure their resort style deckchair and table by the “beach” for the day. By “beach” I mean graduated sandy-coloured painted concrete and a wave machine – ´the biggest waves inland of the sea´, would you believe? The thousands come prepared with buckets & spades, lilos, eskies, hats & blow up crocodiles and they make a day of it. Actually they make a whole summer of it, as Castaneira´s cafés heave with the aprés-pool crowd.
But where the hell do they all stay? There are some tiny cabanas at the pool, so that sorts out about 16 people, there is one nice old house which sleeps about 10, two small but nice hotels and a medium sized camping ground. The masses I speak of come literally in their thousands… and here´s where Joe´s houses come into the picture.
A few years ago Joe, a civil engineer, built these two houses with his family´s future in mind. With one son a chef and Joe and his wife Mariza heading towards early retirement, he had the idea that at least someone in the family would fancy having a B&B, and Joe having seen the development of Castaneira since Praia das Rocas, saw the potential in it. He built two houses, both with two attic bedrooms with ensuite plus three more middle-floor bedrooms plus a ground floor apartment. The lounge, kitchen, dining and garages are all big and they have massive backyards with room for a pool. Both houses have been ducted for central heating, the living rooms already have closed fireplaces and the kitchens have chimneys. Natural light pours into the houses from all sides, there is double glazing and security shutters. The front door has a intercom system accessible on each level of the house. The houses are fully wired for all manner of telecoms, there is an outdoor dining area off the kitchen, plus the ground level barbecue area, smashing town views from most rooms, at least one bathroom on each level, landscaped gardens and, and, and… Gee it looks like the only thing Joe didn´t think of when building these places was to make them wheelchair accessible because as soon as they were 95% complete some jerk crashed his car into Joe´s and landed Joe in a wheelchair. Permanently. Paraplegic-Like. So now he can´t even get through the front door of his own houses, much less down the stairs. Shit and a half, I say to that.
Então, slight change of plans for the Ramos family then.
The 95% finished bit is a good thing. It´s just the interiors that are unfinished. There are no kitchens (plumbing of course is there, but you´d choose the look and arrangement) Ditto for the attic en-suites – plumbing, no fixtures. One house has floating timber floors and the other has unfinished concrete. The final final job will be yours. The ground floor apartment space in not enclosed. All the wiring and plumbing, and a bathroom, is in, but right now they look like outdoor entertainment/basement spaces. So hence, these are new-builds that leave room for your taste, and I like that. New places are all very convenient and clean but I inevitably want to rip out their ugly pine kitchens and start again. Just thanks that Joe has taste in bathroom appliances, because those I rather like: a bit luxy but not pretentious.
So let´s talk business here. One house is €175k and the other is €210k. Say you spend another €5k making them ready for business. During the summer you could have at least a monthly income of €1200 (based on a modest guess of 5 nights out of 7 of the two attic rooms @ €30ea /night). OK so the summer is only 2 months – but then there´s the apartment downstairs which can be rented out full time or you live in the apartment and rent out the 5 bedroom house upstairs. What I´m talking about is the potential of immediate income. I haven´t done all the research but what I see are full cafés and thousands of people and not thousands of places to stay. I would also say again loud and clear that you should not attempt doing business in Portugal without speaking the language. Your main clientele will still be Portuguese, not English-speaking foreigners. My gut tells me this is a goer, and let me tell you Mr Joe is no idiot either.
All of these properties are listed with Chavetejo Imobiliaria LDA who are based in Tomar. The office number is + 351 249 32 77 00 but you know, every time I call it I get the answering machine and that really pisses me off. So what I suggest is that you call the mobiles of Derek +351 918 479 978 or Nicky +351 918 484 547. The best time to catch them is at 7:30am, after their two hour yoga session and just before 8am mass in Tomar. Cruise their website at www.chavetejo.com. These places can be found listed as:
Mosteiro ref 806/10
Fontainha ref 878/09
Castaneira De Pêra €175k ref 5135/09 and €210k 5134/09
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I’ve been researching this post for the last three years and on doctor’s orders, it’s got to stop.
There are just too many cafés in Central Portugal and having to sample all of their coffees and pastries is going to be the end of my arteries and me. I can no longer justify a diet of pasteis, bolos and caffeine for the sake of the blog. Sorry.
In any case the parameters of my research have become blurred. Do I stick to the boundaries of the three Beiras regions or shall we just call it Central Portugal instead? Is it really a post about the best pastelarias in which case does it become a study of fabrico proprio? Is it really just a competition of coffee brands, because I think I’ve developed a preference for Delta. What if I catch a great café on an off day? What if they do the best duchesse in the region and I order a marselhesa by mistake?
But the main reason to stop is that there are just too many good cafés and a post can only be soooo looong…
So I’ll just tell you about my favourites (so far) and you can tell me yours, ok? Let’s go.
How I judge a place. The coffee has to be good on successive visits, with or without milk, bastante quente (who actually likes their coffee luke warm? I don’t know) and a good café IMhO serves directo whether you ask for it or not (or if you can’t tell the difference, that’s impressive). These things show a respect for coffee.
Either a good range of pastelaria, or a unique, small range. I look for specialities, or if they do a classic exceptionally well.
And that’s it: this is not about interior design, comfortable chairs, history, fame or even the temper of the staff… it’s just strictly a coffee and cake experience.
There are certainly many good places. What made it to this selection is being exceptionally good, and I do confess that the surprise of their sometimes obscure locations may have influenced their ranking. How do they compare with my favourite cafés of Lisbon? Certainly not well for décor(!), but for the quality of their coffee and cake, yes, I do believe they are as good.
In alphabetical order, we start in Avelar… a funny little town with really nothing much to recommend it except a pretty church, the Casa Farrica hardware shop and this outrageously good pastelaria. When I was new here I thought I was a genius to discover a cute side alley old fashioned little café which then abruptly closed its doors. I felt guilty and unfaithful when I decided to go to the new big modern place, whose pastries were possibly even better… until I realised it was the same place, they had just expanded. Phew!
Pastelaria Rocha’s thing is sonhos, and they don’t call them dreams for nothing. Their miniatures are adorable and their savoury things also are great.
Ansião is also nothing much of a place (sorry Ansianense) but it does have Pastelaria Diogo, or two, actually. Massive display of goodies, consistently good coffee.
In Condeixa-a-Nova, conveniently located across from the centro de saude, is O Pote de Mel. It is slightly infamous for turning out more unusual creations, in life threatening sizes. If you’re up for something truly decadent, pop in here for a escrapiada or a delicia. After your blood tests.
Technically still in Condeixa, but tucked away in a bairro they call Urbanização Nova de Conimbriga (it’s off the roundabout that joins the IC3 to the IC2, towards Soure) is a little gem of a café called O Bom Forno. It serves more polite, but no less decadent, cake portions of divine invention. And they make the cutest baby berlims I’ve seen. Chocolate berlims too. And it’s wookie friendly.
Coimbra has a few good places. There are three close together on Rua de Sofia near Praça 8 Maio. My favourite is the old fashioned stand-up-only Pastelaria Palmeira, whose speciality is the weird-but-yummy pastel de santa clara. Almost next door, Pastelaria Penta has a bigger range of mouth watering sins and arguably better coffee. Across the road, Pastelaria Sirius is also very good.
When in Leiria I always go to Martin & Thomas on Praça Rodrigues Lobo. It quite rightly uses “gourmet” in its self description and indeed would not be out of place in any modern foodie location in the world. Great bread. Great everything. I think of Leiria as the Braga of Central Portugal. It’s civilised. It has Zara.
And now to Tentúgal and Vouzela. But these places and their pastelarias are SO good that they deserve their own day trip posts. It’s certainly worth going all the way to Vouzela for a visit to Café Central, and to eat a pastel de Vouzela. But the town itself is such a treasure that it’s a destination in itself. Similarly, at first glance Tentúgal’s pastelarias dos doces conventuais look like a truckies´ stop. But Tentúgal not only has an exceptional café but an unforgettable restaurant and a fascinating historic church as well. It’s not just a lay-by, it’s a lay-day.
But after visiting hundreds of other cafés, I always come back to my local. Pastelaria Pingo Doce in Figueiró Dos Vinhos, behind the Câmara, is so inconspicuous you’d normally not notice it. The coffee here is just as I like it and while I’m very fond of their bolos de arroz and tigeladas, it’s their pasteis de nata that are by far and away the best in Central Portugal. I’m tempted to say, the best outside of Pastéis de Belém. I know, it’s a big call, but I have tried, I have tested and I have the belly to prove it.
I would like to hear I’ve missed something in Castelo Branco, or that there’s a gem in Guarda (I’ve never been to Guarda). Have I passed on something in Pombal? Fundão? Do you have a favourite in Aveiro? Does Sertã have something hidden? Anything new in Lousã? Let me know. Not for any more serious research, no, just in case I’m passing…
innocent and unassuming... and the best pastel in the region
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I used to be a girl who knew all about lime; the ones you quarter and stick into the top of a corona beer, the lime that goes in a caipiroska and a caipirinha. The lime that’s indispensable in Thai, Lao and Vietnamese cooking. Even the lime that can be squeezed on oysters, while sipping champagne under a sail of the Opera House and gazing out over Sydney Harbour… sigh…
But now I’m a girl who knows all about the other lime. Building lime. Calcium oxide. Quicklime. Hydraulic and Non-Hydraulic lime. Hydrated lime. Slaked lime, Burnt lime, Fat lime, Lean lime.
Before the advent of portland cement in the mid 19th century, it was lime that held together buildings made of stone and brick. While the wholesale adoption of portland throughout the world practically shelved the use of lime mortars, lime is now making something of a comeback.
These days, lime mortars are primarily used in the restoration of historic buildings; where they are compatible with the existing mortar, they blend in terms of texture and colour to the original, and the flexibility of lime accommodates the softening or weakening of old bricks and stone and does no further damage to them.
Scientific and academic interest in the history of construction history and the efficacy of modern materials has also had an influence on lime’s recovery. We now know a lot more about the chemical properties and reactions at work when using various building materials as a result of studies and testing at a scientific level. For example, due to the worldwide concern about the environment, researchers tell us that lime creates very little CO2 in production compared to portland cement, and this subsequently opens the door to its use as an eco-friendly alternative.
In my case, there are several reasons to consider using lime.
Firstly, portland is too hard for schist-stone and your mortar should never be harder than your building material. Secondly, it’s incompatible with the existing material: You should repoint like for like, if possible. The house was built entirely with a clay mortar. Clay absorbs and releases moisture, it’s highly flexible and highly permeable. Cement is the exact opposite. Using cement on the outside of a clay filled wall would potentially result in cracking of the cement pointing as the rest of the building heaves and shifts. Probably it would trap moisture inside the walls and cause saltpetre and other moisture related problems. But lime, on the other hand, is like clay, flexible and breathable.
So, where do I start? There is not just one type of lime or one standard recipe. So I’ve been trying them all.
At first, due to some translation/linguistic ‘nuances’ (dictionaries can only do so much – check out the list of words for lime in English in the 2nd para, and then times by three to get the Portuguese variations… then you add complications like the similarity of ‘hydraulic’ and ‘hydrated’ and all this results in is a blank stare from the guy at the shop) the only lime I could get my hands on was quicklime. ‘Cal vivo’ in Portuguese.
Quicklime needs to be slaked, i.e. mixed with water and then left to ‘fatten’ (ferment, say) for anything up to 6 months before it is used. Oh bummer. But fortunately there are plenty of ‘skip the rules’ DIYers on the internet offering up all manner of experimental alternatives, so I aligned myself with them to start with.
First I made up ‘hot lime’ and cement mixes; i.e. straight from the bag 1:1:3 lime: portland: sand. At this stage I’m using brickies yellow sand, not ideal for mortar but a nice colour. This is too strong a mix, and it’s a very dodgy way to use the lime, but it results in an aged patina (probably because it’s burning the stone as it reacts) that looks really good. This mix wont work for the engineer though, who’s also the ‘responsavel de obras’, the inspector. It’s too unorthodox and it will probably all fail anyway.
So then I slaked the lime for 24/48 hours. There are a few ways of slaking. Firstly you can use about 1:1 water, and this does a crazy thing of drying to a powder after giving off a lot of heat. That powder is now called hydrated lime (cal apagada). Better still is to use a 2:1-4:1 (depends on the quality of the lime – I find a 2.5:1 a bit stiff and 3.5:1 nice and workable but maybe a bit weak) and this turns into lime putty… after a really fun volcano-like eruption… stand back while watching this movie!
The third slaking method, a very traditional one taken from The Art of the Stonemason
by Ian Cramb, is to mix the quicklime with damp sand, 1:3, and turn it over occasionally over 6 weeks. I’ve got this going on as well.
A word of warning though: I had been fiddling about with the quicklime for a few weeks with only casual regard for safety. One day I was turning over the sand-lime mix in the box for just for a couple of minutes wearing a t-shirt. There was no visible powder on my skin, but I washed my arms off with soap anyway. An hour later I was covered in blisters, including my shoulders – it even went through the t-shirt! Not good. But fortunately I’m not quite so stupid not to wear goggles and mask because I could’ve been blinded! Now, several weeks later, every time I go out in the sun, I get blisters. Nasty stuff.
The putty (even slaked for this ridiculously short 24 hr period) makes your mortar really nice and sticky and easy to work with. Even mixed with grey portland, (1:1:6 is the correct ratio – according to CSIRO – very reliable) over several weeks it dries to a bright white. I also did a few mixes with one part clay in the mix, clay that came out of the original wall. This resulted in a better colour, marginally, but more on clay later.
So far all of these mixes contain cement, which for new wall building will be fine, provided the mix isn’t too strong, and I can get the colour right. But for pointing old walls, this needs a pure lime and sand mix. Slaked quicklime/sand mixes are, these days, only recommended for interior pointing because it is so vulnerable to the elements while it takes years to harden. So I moved on to Hydraulic lime.
The term ‘Hydraulic’ (or ‘non-hydraulic’, as quicklime is) refers to the lime’s ability to set under water, or not. Hydraulic lime sets when combined with water, therefore it dries hard quickly, like cement does. Non-hydraulic limes stay soft initially and gradually harden over a longer time.
There are three types of Hydraulic lime, basically weak, medium and strong (or #1, #2, #3.5 and #5.) The strongest is almost as strong as cement, so it’s usually only used for building areas subject to harsh conditions such as by the seaside, or chimneys, or window sills. But what do you know, #5 seems to be all I can get here in middleofnowhereedgeoftheoworld, central portugal. The #5 is a horrible grey (3.5 is white, I believe) so I’ve done some colour experiments: This time I’m using river sand (a greyer sand with larger particles.)
What do you mean you can’t tell the difference? On the left is a straight Hydraulic:Sand mix at 1:3. Horrible colour and horrible to use. None of the nice stickiness of the putties. In the middle is 1:3 plus 5% ferrous oxide for colour. Still horrible but slight improvement. On the right is .5 hydraulic: .5 sand slaked quicklime, : 3 river sand, 10 % ferrous oxide. Getting closer, but still horrible.
So where does that leave me? Hydraulic too strong, too grey; Non-hydraulic too weak, too white. I think I have two more options.
The first one is pozzolans. They are additives that make non-hydraulic lime harden like hydraulic lime. They can be bagged powders like Brick dust, Fly Ash, or fired clays as found in Pozzolan, Italy. There are proprietary mixes like Metastar. But can you get them in Portugal? My hardware supplier has never heard of a pozzolan, and all I get from google is one academic who mentions “nationally produced” pozzolans in a paper. I’d better send her an email. Maybe she’s my new best friend.
My other option, as some of you may have been thinking, is clay. If lime can make a comeback why can’t clay? If my 5 metre tall walls are still standing after 70 years, why can’t I apply the “like for like” rule and repoint with clay? I’m not suggestion that I dig it out of my garden like the old boys did. I don’t mind buying some peace of mind in a bag. And more… there’s actually a company in the Algarve, Construdobe who produce clay mortars… it’s sounding like a solution, isn’t it? If only my engineer can be convinced…
to be continued….
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The house came without an electric stove and in my new-found penny-pinching peasant state of mind I took to cooking over an open fire. Once I had worked out through trial and error just what this fire stove required to work efficiently (my happiness now depends on a secure supply of pine cones) I have really become addicted to the whole rustic gourmet thing darling…
I’m not new at this rudimentary cooking game. Actually I’m something of a connoisseur of roughing it. I love to camp but I have to eat well. I remember the first time I ate wild garlic. I was camping in chilly Tasmania and I made a lasagne using the whole head of garlic sliced like a (larger) vegetable between layers of tomato and bechamel. It was baked in the ground covered with coals – sort of hangi style. Later, tucked up in sleeping bag under the stars I was treated to a glimpse of a rare Tasmanian Devil when he came to clean up the scraps. Mmmm it was good. Garlicky little Devil.
I can almost still smell a delicious asian style noodle soup I cooked up in a trangia while sneaky-spot camping in a Roman ruin in Tunisia. My trangia and I had some great adventures on that trip. Cooking on the open deck of a ferry on a Mediterranean crossing. Making hot chocolate for new friends while waiting for the sunrise on Mount Sinai. And then entertaining the pilgrim masses with the Miracle of the Burning Wall when I decided to add more fuel to an already flaming canister – oops.
I was also once a cook on a safari through the oases of Western Egypt. We roasted whole sides of lamb, barbequed freshly caught fish, but also made simple pastas with olive oil, fresh local cheese and roasted pine nuts. Yum.
So just give me a pile of sticks and some matches, and I can whip up something tasty from whatever is at hand. Forget fancy pants recipe instructions like “gently simmer for 3 minutes” or “dry in a slow oven” and forget rare & exotic ingredients. No kaffir lime leaves or galangal in Central Portugal. Curry just comes as curry, not as 24 different endangered spices. One has to make do.
Bacalhau
… is Cod. It’s an ugly meaty fish but inexpensive and versatile. They say the Portuguese have 365 recipes for bacalhau. It’s a staple, you might say. The national dish.
And it’s convenient! I still think it’s funny when I bring home a dried cod carcass and put it in the cupboard and forget about it for a while. There’s a fish, in the cupboard, for weeks. I think it’s novel.
Bacalhau Risotto.
Dried bacalhau needs to be rehydrated by placing it in a cold water bath in the fridge for two days. You should change the water at least 3 times each day, and if I forget to then I’ll leave it for a third day. Any less then your fish will be very salty.After the bath, I dry the pieces on a clean teatowel and cut them into large bite-sized chunks. Then I put the chunks in a bowl with garlic and olive oil.In a large frypan or casserole dish, fry a large onion. At the same time start warming about a litre of fish stock, hopefully fresh. If you only have cubes then you can improve them by adding sliced leek, carrots, onions and parsley to the warming stock water. To the onion pan I add the rice – I usually use carolino if I cant get arborio – and stir until all the grains are coated and transparent. Then I add the fish and garlic to the pan with the onion and rice, gently turning the fish so that it doesn’t break up.At this point I might add some vegies – sliced leek, tomatoes or carrots all work well. Also good in this dish are peas and beans – but I wouldn’t add these until the end as I don’t like them well cooked.
Add a cup or so of white wine and let it reduce.
Then gradually start adding the stock, a ladle full at a time until it’s almost completely absorbed. I check the base of the pan to prevent sticking, but otherwise I don’t over-stir.When the rice is al dente I then add some chopped parsley, piri-piri and lemon juice. And then taste for saltiness. I don’t add extra salt until I’ve tasted it as the saltiness of the stock and the bacalhau is variable.
Sometimes I omit the lemon and add a slurp of cream, for an extra decadent comfort-food experience. Yum!
Couve, a portuguese cabbage
More like a spinach than a cabbage, couve is one seriously popular plant. It is everywhere! There are hundreds of types of cabbages in Portugal but probably the most famous is the couve-galego which is used specifically in the classic portuguese soup caldo verde. Country people are passionate about their couve, and before I grew it myself the neighbours would proudly land huge bunches of the stuff on me. Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of green leafy vegetables, but they are one of life’s necessities and so I gave the couve a go. It packs a vitamin rich punch, (it’s actually one of the most nutricious foods you can eat) and now I like it so much I make this dish at least once a week. I’m converted.
This is my super-simple-fast-and-healthy recipe for when you can’t be bothered thinking about what to make. And one I always have the ingredients for as couve produces leaves all year round.
Pasta couve portuguesa.
While the pasta is cooking, fry the onion & garlic in a frypan with a generous quantity of olive oil. Place the finely chopped couve leaves on the top with a spinkling of salt and pepper and put on the lid. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and add it to the pan. Serve with grated parmasan. That’s it!
Goat
One thing I really like about Portugal is the variety of meat and seafood available at the local supermarket. I can’t get other things I consider ordinary, like fresh milk and peanut butter, but I have a choice of 25 fish varieties, rabbit, quail, turkey, game like venisen and wild boar, and infinite types of sausages and dried and smoked meats.
And there’s goat. There’s a traditional goat & red wine stew here called a chafana, but I don’t claim that this is anything like it, I just wish I had a more exotic name for this dish than Goat Stew.
Dredge the goat pieces lighly in flour and brown them on all sides in a pot. Add onions and garlic and finely diced carrot and let them sizzle for a bit. Deglaze the pot with 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, and 1/2 cup of red or rose wine and let it reduce slightly. Add quartered potatoes, a tin of tomatoes and a maybe some water or stock so that the meat is covered at least half way. Season with salt & pepper, a bay leaf and some rosemary or marjoram and then cook slowly for four hours. I do the slow cook on the top of the salamandra (pot belly stove) in the living room, as then I can watch TV, work on the web site, nurse the cat and cook dinner all while keeping cosy on the sofa.When it’s cooked (the meat should be falling off the bone) I serve it topped with a pile of rocket leaves from the garden. A crunchy bread roll is essential for mopping up the juices. When you’ve eaten all the solid bits but there’s still some sauce left, it’s great for lunch with an egg tagliatelle or torn lasagne sheets. Mmmm, very wintery.
Peach Peru
While on the subject of stews cooked on the salamandra, this little invention of mine has become a bit of a favourite this winter. Turkey (Peru in Portuguese – interesting country name switch don’t you think) is cheap, but the cuts are chunky and therefore not well suited to pan frying or anything else really but a slow braising. My mother used to make a yummy apricot chicken and the morrocans are fond of fruit in a tangine (see, the arabs have pretty names for stews as well), so with these things in mind, here’s what I’ve come up with.
Have the butcher chop a couple of legs across the bone as in osso bucco. I usually remove the skin on turkey and chicken to reduce the fat. Fry onion and garlic with a few teaspoons of Caril (curry powder), a teaspoon or two of piri-piri (red pepper), a pinch of nutmeg, ground ginger and cinnamon, until the spices are well blended and darken slightly. Brown the turkey pieces and then add a cup of white wine or sherry. Let it reduce a few minutes then add a tin of peach halves. The liquid should be at least half way up the meat, but if not then you can add a cup of chicken stock. Cook slowly for 2-3 hours. I taste for seasoning at the same time as checking to see if the turkey is cooked through to the bone by inserting a small steak knife and watching if the juices run clear or pink. Sometimes I add little olive-sized new potatoes and carrots to the pot about a half hour before the end. Otherwise I serve it with with salad and rice and a blob of plain yoghurt.
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