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The Flavors of Portugal

Since its explorers set sail in the 15th century, this country has spread its culinary influence to cultures worldwide—and has been inspired in return. Today, Portugal is getting attention in the U.S. for its top-rated wines and for how local chefs are offering a more modern take on its classic dishes.

By Julie Besonen

Interest in Portuguese cuisine is surging now more than ever. Increasingly, chefs and tourists alike are discovering the foods of Spain’s lesser-known neighbor and looking to duplicate the flavors back home.

“Portugal has reached the tipping point,” says David Leite, author of The New Portuguese Table, an award-winning 2009 cookbook that highlights the country’s eclectic ingredients, exotic spices and unusual combinations. “Because of all the attention Spain has gotten in the past 10 to 12 years, it’s reached a certain saturation. The next logical step is to explore beyond its borders.”

The Cuisine’s Appeal

Leite says that Portugal is attracting a closer look these days for two additional reasons. “Portuguese wines are getting top, top ratings from Wine Spectator so a lot of oenophiles are discovering it,” he notes. “Then there’s entry through travel. Portugal is one of the best values in Europe.”

While Portugal and Spain share some similarities in cuisine (seafood, cured ham, sausages), Portuguese cooking is distinct from its neighbor. For instance, there’s the famous pork with clams, a take on surf and turf like no other. “You don’t think it will work but the Portuguese pull it off with great élan,” notes Leite.

“Once you’ve tried it you can get hooked easily,” says Chef Anthony Goncalves, who offers a pork chop with littlenecks and Portuguese chorizo at 42, the elegant rooftop restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton, Westchester in White Plains, N.Y. His New American food with Iberian influences also includes braised short ribs with a poached egg on top and baby lamb chops finished with quince jam. Goncalves, who is of Portuguese descent, says, “I use my creativity to put a spin on everything I grew up eating.”

The Explorers’ Influence

The Portuguese have long been intrepid travelers, playing a major role in the Age of Discovery, which began in the 15th century. They were the first European explorers to open the way to the Atlantic, to cross the Equator, to reach India by sea from the west, to trade with China and Japan and to circumnavigate the globe (that would be Magellan, or Magalhães, in Portuguese). By the 15th century Portugal was the richest country in Europe, with empires that included colonies in South America (Brazil), Africa (Angola, Mozambique) and Asia (Macao, Goa, Timor). It remained a world power and king of the spice trade through much of the 16th century.

“Because of the navigators, Portuguese food is a little bit fusion and influenced by African food,” explains Chef Luisa Fernandes, who was born in central Portugal. The champion of the Food Network’s “Chopped,” in 2009, she recently brought her innovative Portuguese cooking to Nomad, an intimate restaurant in New York City’s East Village. Seafood couscous and lamb and prune tajine represent North African influences while tender baby octopus, salt cod, olive oil, olives and cheese are imported straight from Portugal. Fernandes also features her country’s classic cataplana, a robust stew of fish, clams, lobster, scallops, calamari, peppers, onions, tomatoes and fresh herbs cooked in a traditional copper vessel. She likes to finish off everything with a touch of crumbly Portuguese sea salt, asserting, “It is very different from other salt, more rich in flavor.”

Another essence of Africa in Portuguese cuisine is piri-piri, an incendiary hot sauce made from African bird’s-eye chili peppers. Piri-piri is often slathered on grilled chicken and pork, judiciously sprinkled in soup and seafood stew, used as a marinade for shrimp or a fiery dip for links of chouriço or linguiça sausage. Many restaurants have a bottle on every table so you can control the heat.

“In Portugal, the waiter will ask you, ‘Com ou sem?’’’ explains David Leite. “It means with or without piri-piri sauce. Always order it ‘with’ so you have the experience.”

Leite is the son of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores Islands who settled in the Portuguese community of Fall River, Mass., in the 1950s. Today, the Fall River area, as well as New Bedford, Mass. and Newark, N.J., remain strongholds, though the immigrants are far more assimilated now than they were a generation ago.

Amaral’s Market has been serving the community of New Bedford for more than 40 years, carrying about 200 food items from Portugal. Manager Aleixo Magalhaes estimates that there are still close to 80,000 people of Portuguese descent in the area, many of them originally settling there to work in the fishing industry. Customers line up for the fresh seafood, such as whole sardines, chicharros (stickleback), congro (conger eel) and moreira (moray eel) that arrive from the old country every week. Portuguese olive oils from companies such as Saloio, Serrata and Andorinha are other bestsellers. Other products include hot pepper marinades from Gonsalves and dark, rich, sliceable quince marmalade from Aikebom.

As a youth, Leite wouldn’t have cared to patronize such shops. He says he wanted to be thought of as thoroughly American and it wasn’t until he was in his 30s that he embraced his heritage and began to travel to Portugal to explore the cuisine. “At its heart, Portuguese food is very hearty, simple and straightforward,” he notes. From documenting traditional recipes and the new, exciting contemporary cooking he sampled in Lisbon, his cookbook was born.

Celebrating the Regions

Portugal is made up of seven main regions. In the north is Porto e Norte, home of Port wine, smoked ham, garlic, salt cod, sardines and caldo verde, a soup of potatoes, greens and sausage, such as chouriço or linguiça. Caldo verde is a peasant-style staple, embraced throughout the country.

Salt cod (called bacalao or bacalhau) is ubiquitous across regions. The Portuguese are said to have 365 different preparations for it, including fritters, croquettes or poached with tomato sauce and vegetables. “I’ve actually heard they have a thousand ways of cooking cod,” says Leite.

Chef George Mendes, of Manhattan’s stylish Aldea (Portuguese for village), is a first-generation American born to parents from the country’s Douro region, in the north. “My style of food is inspired by my mom and my aunts,” he says. “I start with a Portuguese framework—a lot of olive oil, bay leaf, fresh parsley, cilantro, smoked paprika, wine-based marinades—and then give the dish my own creative twist. I like to call it ‘refined rusticity.’”

To that end, Mendes’ menu is composed of fish and shellfish, baby goat with paprika and herb pistou, rice with duck confit and sausage and marinated, slowly cooked pork belly with littleneck clams. He also features a snacking section, called petiscos, the Portuguese version of tapas. Small bites might include sea urchin toast with cauliflower purée, and a farm egg with bacalao, black olives and potatoes. Mendes even makes his own fiery piri-piri.

“There’s an avant-garde movement in Portugal, young chefs who are modernizing classics,” notes Mendes. “It’s definitely helping make Portuguese food more visible and I’m happy to be a part of it here in New York City.”

Moving south from Porto e Norte is the Centro region, which includes majestic mountains as well as the long Atlantic coastline. Inland specialties include suckling pig, roasted goat and rice dishes while the coast provides plenty of seafood and shellfish, often served in a stew called caldeirada. Centro also produces some of the nation’s most coveted cheeses, including Queijo Serra da Estrela, a spoonable sheep cheese similar to brie, coagulated with cardoon thistle. “It’s the queen of cheeses, made in wheels, and so soft it’s wrapped in linen,” Leite says.

Forever Cheese, an importer based in Long Island City, N.Y, was one of the first companies to bring Portuguese cheese into the specialty food market in the late 1990s. The company started with just a couple of varieties and now offers 14 types. “What makes them so unique is the runniness, and that they’re coagulated with thistle flower,” says Michele Buster, Forever Cheese’s vice president. (The animal-free rennet also makes them suitable for lacto-vegetarians.) “They’re very perishable, and the volume is so small you have to bring them by air,” she explains. “You can’t sell them cut because they’re going to ooze, so it’s cheese that requires a lot of energy, time and knowledge.”

Forever Cheese also stocks Portuguese olive oil from companies such as Ourogal and Esporão, sour cherry jam and Mitica tomato jam and sea salt from the Algarve. “It’s still a small niche compared to Spain,” says Buster, “but it’s growing and people are always interested to give Portuguese products a shot.”

The Lisbon region, which encompasses Estoril, Cascais, Sintra and Óbidos, offers grilled sardines drizzled with fine Portuguese olive oil on just about every menu. Seafood and freshwater fish are abundant. And no visit to Lisbon is complete without tasting pastéis de Belém, the famously sweet custard tart that originated at a monastery in the 19th century. “It’s made from a secret recipe, an iconic dessert,” says Leite.

The Alentejo, in south-central Portugal, is defined by rocky cliffs, beaches and extensive agriculture. Bread, pork, game, shellfish, olive oil and cheese are essential features of the gastronomy. Its capital is Évora, a UNESCO World Heritage site, whose eponymous cheese is legendary. Leite describes Évora as “small, salty wheels that at one time were so valuable they were used as currency.” Évora is part of a trinity of sheep cheeses from the Alentejo, the other two being Nisa (semi-firm, intensely flavored) and Serpa (tangy, spicy, creamy).

The southernmost region is the Algarve, Portugal’s Riviera and the seafood capital. Fish is also the focus on the sun-kissed island of Madeira, along with a wide variety of tropical fruits and its famous sweet, fortified wine. The last of the seven regions is the Azores archipelago, a chain of nine remote islands that served as a stopping-off point for seafaring explorers beginning in the 1400s. Fish and shellfish, meat stew, and a combination of yams and sausage are the specialties. Cheese is also prized, with most of the attention going to São Jorge, a cheddar-like cow’s milk cheese.

Chef Manuel Azevedo, who was born in São Jorge, has been serving modern Portuguese food in California’s Sonoma Valley for the past 12 years. His restaurant, LaSalette, initially fought an uphill battle, so few people were aware of the cuisine’s hallmarks.

“I used to have to educate people and explain myself,” says Azevedo, “but now people are coming around from traveling there.” He believes Portugal wasn’t on Americans’ radar before because “they’re not the best at promoting themselves, tooting their own horn. And yet the food is every bit as rich and varied as what you’d find in Spain and Italy.”

Azevedo says his singular goal in opening his restaurant was to do his best to get the cuisine known. “I’m thrilled that it’s finally happening,” he says. “It’s long overdue.” |SFM|

THE WINES

Portugal ranks tenth in the world as a wine-producing country, which is saying something when you consider that it’s roughly the size of Pennsylvania. Vineyards virtually blanket the coastal, rugged landscape.

In 1756 the northeast’s Douro Valley was officially designated a wine region, the world’s first, and continues to generate some of the country’s best, most distinctive reds. High ratings from Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast have driven up sales, with red wine exports increasing 124 percent in the past three years.

In 2005, Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic at The New York Times, wrote a seminal story, “For the Next Big Thing, Look to Portugal,” which spurred serious interest. After tasting 25 dry reds from the Douro, he concluded, “More than anything, these wines struck me as honest. They did not try to imitate flavors and styles that are popular elsewhere….They were decidedly Old World in style, with tannins, mineral flavors and good acidity, excellent with food but not wines for people milling around in a banquet hall.”

Portugal grows more than 200 indigenous grape varieties, more than any other country. Vinho verde, young (“green”) wine produced in the north, is the most well-known white. Light, crisp and effervescent, it’s an ideal match for seafood. Reds are mostly blends, with common grapes including touriga nacional, touriga franca, castelao and tinta roriz.

The country’s rich, fortified Port and Madeira wines are highly prized. They emerged as a popular export to the British in the 1700s, with brandy added as a preservative for shipping purposes. In 2008, worldwide sales topped 10 million cases.

Casa Oliveira Wines & Liquor in New York City’s West Village, specializes in Portuguese wine and carries more than 50 varieties. “Good press is driving newcomers to the Portuguese wine scene,” says the store’s manager, Mark Nani, who’s noticed an uptick in business. He also noted that the wines are bargains for the quality.

In addition to the Douro, other major wine-producing regions are the mountainous Dão in the central North, and the Alentejo, in the South, which is Portugal’s largest province.

Julie Besonen is the food editor at Paper magazine, writes a weekly restaurant column for nycgo.com and has contributed to The New York Times and the New York Daily News.