The Great Chef

This is another recipe from Alentejo, Southern Portugal. The local name for this cookies is popias . These are among my favorite cookies and they are perfect for breakfast, for a snack, or an afternoon tea. But once you try them, they will serve, mostly, to feed your gluttony. They look hard but when you bite them you realize that they are like those huge guys who seem to be made of steel but who, in reality, melt as easily as butter under the sun. If these were not enough pluses, they are super easy and fun to do. Up to four dozen cookies: In a big bowl, combine 4 eggs, 2 cups of sugar, 3/4 cup of olive oil. Mix everything very well. Add zest from 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and 6 cups of flour. Incorporate all ingredients very well until you get a mixture similar to oats or large sand in texture. Transfer to a clean surface sprinkled with a little bit of flour and knead until you obtain a homogeneous and smooth dough. Then take small pieces and shape them into rolls 8 t...

Last Wednesday the Chinese Painting and Calligraphy group I belong to had a reception for the opening of our first exhibition. We organized everything with the kind support of the Yale Office of International Students and Scholars. Of course, food was included on the organization tasks. Each of us brought a dish - either savory or sweet - to offer to those who joined our reception. The diversity of the table reflected the cultural diversity of our group which was wonderful! And since I wanted to bring Portugal to that international table, I made a honey cake very traditional of Alentejo, a region southern of Portugal. For those of you who have been following my writings, you know how I deeply love and feel connected to that part of the country. My beloved grandma if from Alentejo and she passed me the passion for that wonderful region where one can live warm long days and have a kind of sustainability which is rare nowadays. One of the region's most famous dessert is this honey cak...

As in almost catholic countries these days, Easter in Portugal is less about religious celebration than it is about family gathering around the table. The main dishes vary from region to region but there are a few common traditions. The presence of the sweet bread is one of them. Traditionally, the sweet bread was the gift from godmothers to their godsons/goddaughters on Easter Sunday, in return for the flowers received on the Palm Sunday. Nowadays, the gadgets became the traditional gift and the sweet bread makes its appearance as a dessert for Easter lunch. Being as it may, this bread is a must have at any Portuguese Easter table (Greeks also have sweet bread in the Easter, as far as I know). Here it is my recipe for the Portuguese sweet bread: Start by dissolving 2 packages of yeast into 1/3 cup of warm milk. Set it aside while preparing the dry ingredients for the dough, allowing it to grow a bit. In a big bowl mix 4 cups of all purpose flour, 10 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of warm...

Being reminded this morning about our Wine Club reunion this evening, I realized that I was yet to review our last meeting, that happened on the beginning of February. We dedicated our last reunion to Portugal. Sadly, my country is still waiting for the deserved truly recognition of its wines. For the majority of wine enthusiasts, Portugal is synonym with Porto wine and that is it. While Porto wine is, undoubtedly, a wonderful flag for our place in the world of wine, either disregarding or poorly rating everything else that is produced is a shame, to say the least. The only thing Portuguese producers can be blamed for is their scarce investment on serious international advertisement. But if the quality of the wine was dependable on that, the new wine enthusiasts would never know about many Premiere Cru . Wine should be experienced apart from prejudices - as everything in this life - but I guess that is just me daydreaming again. As a matter of fact, some renown wine critics (this i...

Last week, the Yale Traditional Chinese Painting Group decided to arrange a "cooking together" day. It was a wonderful opportunity for exchange recipes, bonding, and experience real Oriental flavors. I spend some time thinking about what could fairly represent Portuguese cuisine without presenting to my fellow (hope to be) painters a great challenge, flavor-wise. After some suggestions from friends and my husband, I decided that Portuguese kale soup it would be the perfect choice. At the end, it did reveal to be as such since everyone loved the soup so much that most of us had a second bowl! Here is the recipe for 4 to  6 servings. In a pot, bring 2 quarts (2 liters) of water to the boil. While the water is heating, peel 2 pounds of boiling potatoes and cut them in even medium size cubes (the small you cut the potatoes the fastest they will cook. Just make sure all cubes are around the same size so they cook evenly and at the same time). When the water starts boiling, add 1 t...

Among all nuts almonds stand, for me, as the most elegant and versatile. You can use them in a variety of ways, from savory dishes to decadent desserts without forgetting the milk, the perfect substitution for diary milk. In Portuguese cuisine, almonds are used mostly on desserts with the great majority of the recipes coming from the convents to us, along the centuries. One of the singular characteristics of the conventual desserts is the almost unbelievable quantity of eggs used. Portuguese conventual pastry was almost like a side effect of the excess of eggs produced within the boundaries of the convents. The result is a span of rich, creamy and gooey sweets that will embrace you in a wrap of sweet happiness.  The almond tart - one of the ex libris  of portuguese conventual pastry - is no exception. The other side of the coin shows that some people do not feel that much happy specially about the gooey part of the embrace. One of my friends is among those particular beings an...