A worthy addition to the Atkins diet?
Maybe leave off the bread (carbs, you know...)
Legend has it that in the 1960s, one Daniel da Silva returned to his native Portugal following a stint in France and Belgium, with a vision of adapting the classic grilled ham and cheese croque-monsieur for local palates. The result was the Francesinha ("Frenchie"), an example of what happens when you take a simple sarnie, …
Coming from the land of Poutine, I thought I could look any heart-attack-inducing cuisine in the eye with pride, but recently I saw a macaroni-and-cheese-stuffed glazed doughnut from the USA and now this -- THIS -- from Portugal. Portugal wins, because the Frenchie, unlike the mac-and-cheese doughnut, looks awesomely delicious.
I will raise you rillettes de porc! In the eighties we used to get that in our French Army ration packs along with a packet of Gauloise, a bottle of eau de vie and a side order consisting of one liter of wine.
I live in Portugal and they do have good hearty fare up North, if you had wandered down South you could have ditched the jackets and eaten something lighter with a hint of Arab in it.
I dont agree with you, Sagres and Super Bock are quite ok, and let me tell you I've lived in Belgium, so I know about this stuff.
As for "Francesinhas" I stay away from it as much as I can, you can ear your arteries crying just by looking at the stuff.
I've had to change my Saturday habit. Now I read the Post-Pub-Nosh when I arise and have coffee. Run to the local store for ingredients. Spend time following the recipe... then Heaven!
It's a curse that I have to get up early but worth the wait and the resulting Nosh is the blessing.
Tabasco? Chilli powder? You do know you could save yourself a bit of trouble and simply swap the linguiça for some nice Goan chouriço if it's available. If you're near New England, Emeril's home town of Fall River is a source of some rather nice hot chouriço which is quite fit for purpose. On a side note there's also a little shop to get pork pies while you're in the neighborhood, if you get there early enough of course.
Although my major complaint about Worstall Towers being in the Algarve is that this is very much a Northern Portugal dish. Rare to see it in the south.
On the other hand, the original home of Nando's style peri peri (Nando's is Mozambiquan Portuguese as filtered through South Africa) is "estilho da Guia" and is frango piri piri here. And Guia is 10 clicks from said W Towers.
And there's also the "bitoque". Standard "snack" meal all over the country. Minute steak, fried egg, chips, rice and salad. € 5, maybe 6 in a place that insists that it really is beef. The Portuguese do tend to insist that calories are a very important part of a meal.
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"Grr....I'm working in Bohemia at present where it really isn't quite that warm. No doubt it will cool down around Messines nicely for my next trip home in a couple of weeks."
Summer was not brilliant so I think we might have a nice winter which you will catch. I am off to London and then ISIS territory tomorrow. Not looking forward to London at all.
Have a good one and hopefully Iceland will have some stock left when you get here !!!
Francesinha Romana- substitute focaccia for the Wonder Bread, dust the works with ground fennel and parmesan, put some Pavarotti on the stereo, throw a log on the fire, nestle in with a copy of "Understanding media" by Marshal McLuhan to feed your head, as well as your face.
Whilst that looks simply awe inspiring I can't help feeling you have lost sight of the original experiment. We're looking for Post-Pub nosh here. Anything that requires a list of ingredients, specialist shopping trips, 40+ minutes of cooking time and a sauce that needs straining just doesn't qualify. In a Post-Pub scenario you would have fallen asleep and set the whole house on fire long before you began the process of building the layers. And, frankly, if you have the co-ordination, post-pub, to strain a sauce, then you're simply not trying hard enough.
Post Pub should be limited to a MAXIMUM 6 ingredients and the only sauce required should come from a bottle. That's the beauty of the bacon sarnie - it's simplicity!
I get the impression that this is "post pub" in the sense that it's the sort of thing you'd buy from a fast food / takeaway place while staggering home- a la doner kebab. They, of course, will have made large quantities of the sauce in advance.
You *could* make it yourself, but you probably wouldn't bother doing it as a one-off most of the time; certainly not when one was ratarsed, as you suggest.
So make it before you go out.
These aren't just post-pub nosh suggestions but also serve as hangover cures. Some people take preventitive measures such as drinking a litre of water before imbibing the golden nectar others chose to tackle the affects afterwards, hence "post-pub".
That looks good. My experience is that the degree of goodness boils down to
1) the quality of beef;
2) the quality and quantity of sauce.
The cheese is incidental it seems. I've heard of many variations on the sauce, but largely the recipe is a closely-guarded secret. Whiskey crops up often. Jars of ready-made can be got at Portuguese stores, but they aren't great. Anyway, there should be so much sauce that you can't say no to mopping it up with hand-cut french fries. Wash it down with a massive ceramic mug of red vinho verde, and keep your diary clear for the afternoon.
Bom apetite
"Legend has it that in the 1960s, one Daniel da Silva returned to his native Portugal following a stint in France and Belgium, with a vision of adapting the classic grilled ham and cheese croque-monsieur for local palates."
Rather than basing his creation on tosta mista (mixed toast) that has been around in Portugal since at least the 40s according to my Portuguese uncle .
This dish is the quickest way to get an heart attack whatever your age is...
Even 1 per month would be too much. Saturated fat in this thing will take more than a week of work to the human body to dispose of and still the arteries will surely be affected in a very bad way.
Hasn't recent scientific/dietary research shown us that saturated fat doesn't cause cholesterol - whilst the high calorific content of this piece of awesomeness may slow you down for the remainder of the day, and require significant effort to burn off, your arteries should be fine
So eat on I say, besides, why live long if you deny yourselves the pleasures of life - surely a shorter, more hedonistic life is preferential to a longer monastic one
You can't just skip the fries.. You just can't. Usually, that plate is stock full with fries around the francesinha, and with enough sauce to fill it to the top, making the fries soak it all up :D
Usually, the linguiça and/or chouriço are slightly grilled, and that whole thing ( without the sauce, of course ) goes inside a press toaster, to make it all "get together" as a whole".
Of course, you've earned the wrath of the gods by using spain's excuse for beer, and you're no longer eligible to cook your own francesinha in this country, but it's ok... ;)
And, of course, there's beer in the sauce, and there MUST be a beer in your hand...
If you really want to try something that gets that pub crawl away from your mind, try some feijoada. Or cozido. I promise you'll never want to eat anything else ( for the rest of the day ).
It's not even 10 AM, and you've made me hungry... Where can i get a decent francesinha around here... hmmm... Oh. 50 meters away... Right :D
But Tabasco?!? How could you insult the Portuguese by advocating American muck. Portuguese shops are full of a wonderful selection of piri piri sauces made with African bird's eye chili, not the nonsense jalapeno or poblano's suggested by Emeril Lagasse. When I went around Mozambique every place selling food had home made piri piri, similarly, Portuguese vegetable shops in Johannesburg (sadly disappearing) frequently sell bottles of home made piri piri. Part of the pleasure (and danger) of piri piri is trying these home made concoctions, And it's also best to skip the baby food and ask for forte piri piri