Good Food with Regional Character at Reasonable Prices
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| Portugal |
The Alentejo: Where and What is it?
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| Portugal's Modern districts |
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| Alentejo Province |
After the 1974 Carnation Revolution (the military coup from which Portugal emerged as a modern parliamentary democracy) the provinces were replaced by 18 districts (right-hand map). Beja district is the old Baixo Alentejo minus a coastal chunk (the Alentejo Litoral) which is now in Setubal District, the Alto Alentejo is split between the Districts of Évora and Portalegre. This post is based
in meals eaten in Évora, Beja, Mértola, Castro Verde, Serpa and Santiago do Cacém – I have marked and ringed these as precisely as I can. The Alentejo may no longer officially exist (except to the Comissão Vitivinícola Regional about whom more later) but the concept of the Alentejo remains strong and the word is in everyday use.
A Confession
Before getting on with the food, a confession: I have spent far more time in the Algarve than the Alentejo and my knowledge of the
Alentejo cuisine, having progressed through infancy, still lingers in the stroppy
teenager stage. This post, then, is far from comprehensive – and may even, despite my best efforts, contain errors!
Meat
The Alentejo has only a small section of coastline and the districts of Portalegre, Évora and Beja are as far from the sea as Portugal can be, so meat is more important here than in the fish-eating Algarve. With that information, I will start with lamb and work my way up to pork, the most important meat in the region...
Lamb
Lamb in Portuguese is called Borrego or Cordeira. What the difference is, if any, remains a mystery. In Serpa, the Restaurante O Alentejano was recommended by the friendly staff at our hotel. We found their meat dishes a little heavy, but ate there twice, largely because we could not find anywhere else open on the Wednesday.
On the first evening I had leg of lamb, a dish with a single word Portuguese name, which was much lauded in Trip Advisor reviews. I cannot remember the name, nor can I now find the reviews, but I was disappointed. The lamb seemed to have been roasted, then cut up and dropped into a garlicky broth. The lamb was not the best, or had not been treated well, and the broth seemed underpowered.
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| Leg of Lamb, O Alentejano, Serpa 2023 |
On our second visit, Lynne had lamb cutlets. There was little to go wrong here, and the quantity of meat was enormous.
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| Lamb chops, O Alentejano, Serpa 2023 This was the quantity on the serving plate when Lynne paused for a second wind. |
Rabbit (Coelho)
Great Britain is an island hopping with rabbits, but despite this natural resource it is easier to find rabbit on a Michelin starred
menu than in a supermarket. Lean and well-flavoured, it should be among the most
popular and cheapest of meats, but it isn’t. Restaurant Migas in Mértola (photo: scroll down some way) has no pretentions, but in 2017 it offered Lynne a welcome opportunity to eat a well-cooked rabbit.
Wild Boar (Javila)
At the similarly unpretentious Tamuje, in the same small town, I enjoyed wild boar; the choicest morsels, simply cooked and moistened with the rich garlicky cooking broth and served with salad and potatoes.There was more chew than you get with a regular pig, and with a slightly different,
slightly stronger flavour. I liked it very much.
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| Lynne's Porco Preto, my Javila (wild boar) and a bottle of Herdade dos Lagos, Tamuje, Mértola, 2017 |
Lynne, meanwhile, enjoyed porco preto cooked and served the same way, which introduces the most important beast in Alentejo cuisine...
Black Pork
The finest pork comes, indisputably, from the Iberian black pig (porco preto).
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| Iberian black sow, from the 2019 post Pigs, Ham and Tapas (Andalusia) |
The pigs – believed to be a cross between domestic pigs introduced by the Phoenicians and wild boar - have been raised in central southern Spain and Portugal for millennia. They live a pampered life roaming in herds among the sparse oak forests feeding mainly on acorns.
Porco is Portuguese for
‘pig’, there is no word for ‘pork’, menus always refer to pig meat, Carne de
Porco Preto. It is, of course, the pig that is black, or at least its
trotters, not the meat which is normal pork colour.
The Spanish make a big fuss over the Jamón Iberico produced from these pigs, the finest of which fetches astronomical prices. We enjoyed three days in Andalusia in 2019 on an Iberian Ham extravaganza (three blogposts, for the first click here). The Portuguese produce ham, too, but this post concentrates more on the regular pork.
I first encountered Porco Preto in 2016 at Restaurant Malagueta in Évora and from the very first forkful I realised that there was something special on my plate.
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| Menu, Casa do Alentejo, Castro Verde, 2022 |
The precise cuts of Porco Preto are important in both Spain and Portugal, The menu tells me I had magro, abanico e cachaço (lean, fan and
neck). I don’t know which was which but they were all excellent. Under Talho (Butcher)
I could have chosen lagartos (lizards), secretos (secrets) presa (plunder) or
plumas (feathers) wonderfully descriptive words even if I would not know one
from another.
Migas is the usual accompaniment to porco preto, and is often named first, Migas de Espargos c/ Carne de Porco Preto as it says in the Casa
Alentejo menu above. Migas is made from leftover bread (or
sometimes potato) mashed and seasoned and mixed with garlic and olive oil and
either tomato or asparagus. It is very heavy; the first time I ate migas and
porco preto there were also chips on the plate
and I dutifully scoffed the lot. I did not immediately realise how much I had
overeaten, but 48-hours passed before I could face more food. This time I took a small
portion from the slab on the serving plate – and was better for it.
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| Just a little migas with Carne de Porco Preto, Casa Alentejano, Castro Verde, 2022 |
Bochechas de Porco em Vinho Tinto
Pork cheeks stewed in red wine may not be unique to the Alentejo, but they are very much at home here.
I have seen recipes that use porco preto, but after it has marinated in red wine for several hours and then stewed in the same wine
for several more, I suspect a special pork – or a high-quality wine – would have
lost its finesse. This is hearty, rustic food; the wine-dark
slabs of porky loveliness need only a salad, maybe a few chips and a jarra de
vinho tinto to be totally satisfying.
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| Rabbit (Lynne) and Bochechas (me), Restaurant Migas, Mértola, 2017 |
In 2018, at the Beja Pousada (Pousadas are relatively upmarket hotels specialising in regional dishes) the attempted elevation of the dish by adding a
poached pear, cinnamon-ed close to inedibility, just seemed odd. Bochechas are
fine as they are, they are not supposed to be 'haute cuisine' they are comfort food.
This year, the Restaurant O Arco, set back from the road beside a petrol station on the edge of Santiago do Cacém did not look immediately attractive, but the hotel receptionist had tentatively suggested it as it was Sunday, a day many other restaurants close. They opened at seven and when we arrived at ten past we were not the first. By 7.30 the place was packed. From the decor, or rather lack of it, and the nature of the menu, we deduced they specialised in the food your granny used to cook - if you had a Portuguese granny. I think of comfort food as being immensely satisfying, but rather a guilty pleasure, but when it is someone else's comfort food, that little act of exploration cancels the guilt leaving only the pleasure.
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| Bochechas de Porco em Vinho Tinto, simply cooked, simply served. O Arco, Santiago do Cacém, 2024 |
Soft, unctuous pork cheeks, the fat mixing with the vinous, garlicky cooking liquor, leaving the diner no choice but savour it and smile.
Carne de Porco à Alentejano
As in the Algarve the link between meat and fish is provided by pork and clams, though the clams go unmentioned in the dish’s title.
In the Algarve pork and clams are cooked in a cataplana, in the Alentejo the pork and potatoes are
pan fried and then join the clams in a rich brown, garlicky sauce.
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| Carne de Porco à Alentejano, Casa Aletejano, 2022, Castro Verde |
The dish is occasionally available in the Algarve, the finest I have ever eaten was at Dois Irmão in Faro. Lynne was
disappointed with her Carne de Porco à Alentejano at the Casa Alentejano in Castro Verde,
there were only seven clams, and four of those seemed to be cockles, a related
but different animal. I did better in 2023 at the O Alentejano (there is a theme merging with these names!) in Serpa. I had 12 clams, and they were all clams.
Fish and Seafood
For centuries - or millennia, the districts of Beja, Évora and Portalegre were too far from the sea for fresh fish to be transported. There are no natural lakes and most rivers only run for a few months a year, so there was no tradition of fish eating - except for....
...Bacalhau.
'Bacalhau' is Portuguese for cod, but when used on its own means 'salt cod', fresh cod is always bacalhau fresco. Portuguese fisherman were catching cod on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland as early as the 1500s. To get the fish home in edible condition it was landed and salted in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or, later, Iceland.
Salt cod, cheap, easy to transport and with an almost infinite shelf-life, soon became the Portuguese peasantry's main source of protein Soaking is the first step to making it palatable, and resourceful and imaginative people developed a range of recipes - there are said to be 365 - so they could eat bacalhau everyday but still enjoy variety. In time the wealthier classes realised they were missing something, and bacalhau gradually became the national dish of all Portuguese people.
Salting cod is no longer necessary, but the Portuguese love affair with it continues. Every corner shop and supermarket has rustling sheets of salt cod - loose, not pre-packed - for shoppers to sort through and select what they want. We no longer have to cure ham to preserve pork, or make cheese to preserve milk, but we still do because we enjoy the products. And similarly the Portuguese still have salt cod - as well as ham and cheese.
Pataniscas de Bacalhau. Last year (2023) I ate Pataniscas de Balcahau in Restaurante Molho Bico in Serpa.
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| Pataniscas de Bacalhau with rice and beans, Restaurante Molho Bico, Serpa, 2023 |
The patanisca was made by frying shredded salt cod with onion in a wheat flour and egg batter. It was served with a bowl of rice and beans and a good salad (not photographed). This is comfort food, not haute cuisine, and like all great comfort food it is rich, savoury and very satisfying.
Bacalhau Espiritual
This year (2024) at O Arco in Santiago do Cacém, Lynne ate Bacalhau Espiritual. Unlike most Bacalhau recipes its origin is known and fairly recent. In 1947 Countess Almeida Araújo was a consultant for a new restaurant in the Queluz Palace near Lisbon, and gave this name to her adaption of the French dish Brandade Chaude de Morue. The dish involves salt cod, shredded carrot, dry bread soaked in milk, béchamel sauce and a cheesy crust.
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| Bacalhau Espirtual, O Arco, Santiago do Cacém, 2024 |
Despite its aristocratic origins, the use of a French sauce and an Italian cheese (Parmigiano in the gratin) it is difficult not to see this as also being comfort food. Lynne enjoyed it very much but could not finish it all. A young man who came in after us and sat alone at an adjacent table, ate a mountainous salad, the whole bowl of Bacalhau and a dessert and left before we had finished our one course. We could have done that 50 years ago, but now we eat less, but savour more (it was never a choice, it just happened).
Other Fish and Seafood
The age of the refrigerated lorry arrived many decades ago, so inland Portugal has all the fish it wants, though it can never be as fresh as it is beside the sea. In 2022 we both ate Polvo à Lagareiro (Octopus Lagareiro -see Eating the Algarve for more details) at the oddly named Planície Gastronomia Criativa (Plain Creative Gastronomy) in Castro Verde and in 2023 Lynne ate Chocos (cuttlefish) at Molho Bico in Serpa. Enjoyable as they were, neither are essentially Alentejo dishes, so I will move on.
Cataplana Alentejano
This may not be an Alentejo dish, either, as the Cataplana is a traditional Algarve cooking vessel, but it was on the menu at Mr Pickwicks in Évora in 2017. Opened at the table, it produced a waft of
inviting odours. Inside were huge chunks of deeply flavoured stewed pork, tiger
prawns (of Thai origin?), mussels, crab claws and, of course, clams. Everything
was steeped in a broth of the usual Portuguese suspects, tomato, peppers,
garlic and coriander with chunks of potato boiled in the broth.
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| Inside the cataplana, Mr Pickwick's, Évora, 2016 |
It was wonderfully messy – getting your hands in is the only way to deal with prawns and crabs - and in every way delightful. The
clams had a yellowish shell with a distinctive black edge. A week later we bought
and cooked some identical clams in the Algarve and discovered they originated in Vietnam. In
November 2017 we ate the same clams in both Hong Kong and Macau. Algarve clams have long been over-exploited, these are good, cheap and (for the moment) plentiful.
Cheese
Portugal has eleven cheeses that have been awarded PDO (Product of Designated Origin) status, three of them, Évora, Serpa and Nisa come from the Alentejo. All three are made from unpasteurised sheep's milk and curdled using an extract from the cardoon thistle making them suitable for vegetarians.
Nisa is a small town in the Portalegre District, about as for north and east as the old Alto Alentejo province reached.
Nisa Cheese is classified as 'semi-hard,' has a dense texture and is (usually) yellowish white with a subtle flavour and an acidic finish. I found the flavour relatively mild, but complex. The Wine Spectator cheese edition ranked Nisa among their 100
Great Cheeses.This may overrate it a bit, but it is reasonably priced and fairly easy to find (at least in Portugal) and is always enjoyable.
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| Nisa Cheese |
Serpa comes from a small city in the Beja District near the Spanish border. The Cheese is not as easy to find as the other two and we went to Serpa (partly) to buy it. It looks similar but is a little stronger than Nisa. It is softer, too, in a style known as amanteigado meaning buttery. Forever Cheese describe it as strong and complex with sheepy, sour and buttery notes. That seems about right and it is my favourite of these three
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| Queijo de Serpa |
Évora is the administrative centre of the Évora District. It produces a semi-soft cheese which becomes harder and crumblier as it matures and the rind darkens. It is described as being rich and robust with a salty tang. My example seemed a little drier than I would have liked. My plan is to check out another version next year.
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| Évora cheese |
Other Cheeses
DOP cheeses are not very expensive, though they do command a premium price. The Alentejo produces a large quantity of less exalted cheeses, most of which are cheaper and some of which are very good. As they tend to look very similar, choice can be difficult. The price is usually a guide to quality (mostly you get what you pay for) but the only guide to strength/mildness is experience. The two below come from large and reliable Herdade Maia in Évora. One plain, one dusted with pimento, they are well made cheeses which would suit most palates,
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| Herdade Maia cheese |
Cheeses are almost universally made from sheep's milk. With rare exceptions, rinds are edible, and cheeses are cut across, not into segments.
Wine
Alentejo may no longer exist for purposes of local government, but the Comissão Vitivinícola Regional recognises an Alentejo
Denominação de Origem Controlada that covers large parts of the Évora
and Portalegre districts. Eight subregions (Borba, Évora,
Granja-Amareleja, Moura, Portalegre, Redondo, Reguengos, and Vidigueira)
can use their own name as well as ‘Alentejo’ on the label.
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| Borba Tinto |
The reds are soft, juicy and easy drinking. Borba is the largest sub-region (by production) and I have always enjoyed the wines from the local
co-operative which are inexpensive, widely available and guaranteed to bring a
smile to the face.
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| Encostas de Serpa, Vinho Regional |
The whites tend to be more austere. They don’t win prizes in blind tastings, but paired with the right food they have a way of opening
out and complementing the flavours of the dish. This is what they were designed
to do, and they are very good at it. The Reguengos we drank with the cataplana
Alentejano in Évora and the Vidigueira with the polvo in Castro Verde were particularly
satisfying.
There is much DOC Alentejo wine, but there is even more Vinho Regional Alentejano, a classification for more basic wines, or for winemakers reluctant to follow the strict rules of DOC. I tend to go by cost rather than precise appellation, at any price point up to €10-12 Alentejo, or Alentejano wines can be relied upon for excellent value
And Finally
Light lunches in small cafés are rarely gastronomic, and not always light. The toastie is universally popular, the word 'tosta' was long ago incorporated
into Portuguese. Sometimes a ‘sharing toastie’ can look….
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| It's a sandwich, Jim, but not as we know it, Café 7arte, Castro Verde 2022 |
….immense.
Évora (2016)
Mértola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - also under Algarve
Beja, Capital of Baixo Alentejo(2018)
Castro Verde (1): Surrounding Villages (2022)
Castro Verde (2): Castro Verde and Ourique (2022)
Serpa (2023)
The Alentejo, Eating and Drinking (2024)
