Fish And Cheese: A Roundup Of Portuguese Culinary Adventures

I have once again found myself behind on my blogging! I think I have a pretty good excuse though, I've been on vacation and Tucker and I are in the process of buying a house and moving into it (also, buying kitchen appliances, fun! I'll post later with a review of the appliances we have carefully chosen with the help of consumer reports and cooks illustrated. Our big bet is on the induction range, which also means buying a whole new set of pots!).

Anyhow, I do have a backlog of recipes I want to blog, but I also wanted to post about some of the things we've eaten and drunk in the past few weeks in Portugal an Scotland! We've actually been making a lot of stuff with salt cod (bacalau) recently, so it was great to go visit it's homeland. Almost immediately, I stumbled across a store entirely devoted to bacalau (spelled bacaluah is Portuguese) and then stopped in a little coffee shop to eat some pasteis de bacalhau (or croquetas de bacalau in Spanish) which were delicious! I also had one with chicken inside which was very different than any pasteis or croqueta I have had before, it was really good, I want to find a recipe for them.
While in Portugal, most of what I ate was cheese. I LOVE cheese, especially sheep's milk cheese, which I fell in love with when I lived in Spain. In Portugal, one of the best cheese I had was this creamy and soft sheep's cheese that we ate with a spoon out of the rind. I believe it was called Azeitao.It was the dessert course of a very long dinner I had where the main course was swordfish "portuguese style" which turns out means it was stewed with potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and deliciousness.
My last night in Portugal, I went to a fantastic restaurant in Lisbon that was built in an old monastery called A Travessa. It was beautiful, the service was amazing (the owner and a somalier waited on us) and the food delicious. I can't ask for much more. We sat down and they just started bringing us small plates, lots of blended fish pates (that were really good and reminded me of gefilte fish a little bit... in a good way), but the best small plate was fried goat cheese with pumpkin jam. Yes! For the main meal, I had stone bass (I had never heard of this kind of bass before going to Portugal...) with a lime sauce, which was very good, and for dessert this amazing raspberry and cream napolean with millefiore cookies (it is pictured on their website, just amazing). It was too dark to get good pictures of my food, but see below for some shots of the restaurant.


After Lisbon, I jetted off to Scotland to meet Tucker, eat some neeps and tatties, and of course, drink some whiskey!

Comments

Tameri T. said…
Loved this post! Someday I will get there. have you posted any of your cod recipes?
m. said…
"fried goat cheese with pumpkin jam"

I WANT TO GO TO THERE.