Caldo Verde / Baking with Dark-Coloured Pans / Indonesian Oxtail Soup

Recipe: Nigel Slater's classic caldo verde recipe

In its purest form, this heart-warming Portuguese broth contains nothing more than potatoes, garlic, couve gallego (a type of kale) and water.

Blog Post: Lower the heat when baking with dark-colored pans

The thing about black absorbing heat is also true for baking pans. Dark-colored pans make cakes, cupcakes or cookies bake faster so it is a good practice to lower the oven temperature by 25F.

Blog Posts and Recipes: Indonesian Oxtail Soup (Sop Buntut) Part I and Indonesian Oxtail Soup (Sop Buntut) Part II

Cooking oxtail requires a rather aggressive simmer - although not a rolling boil - to melt away all the connective tissues leaving the tender meat on the bone. This method doesn’t work in normal cuts which will simply turn tough and dry due to the lack of the protective layer.

Cook with Fenugreek / Elderflower Fritters / Portuguese Seafood Stew

Article & Recipe: How to cook with fenugreek

Like cilantro, fenugreek is a plant whose leaves and seeds can be used in all sorts of ways ...

Roast Chicken Legs With Fenugreek, Cumin and Lemon

Blog Post & Recipe: Elderflower fritters

The flowers held themselves in a beautiful lacey shape when cooked and their aromatic flavour was intensified by the grappa. Just a little dusting of icing sugar made them into a perfect, delicate dessert.

Blog Post & Recipe: Shipboard Romance: Alain Morville and His Portuguese Seafood Stew

Alain Morville’s stew, known as Caldeirada da Marisco, is an example of a dish that lends itself to variation ... The chef used lots of seafood and added chunks of monkfish, too; he poured in a whole bottle of white wine (sauvignon blanc); and instead of water, he used shrimp stock, made with shrimp heads and shells, aromatic vegetables and a little more white wine.

Forest Gardening / Seared Scallops with Lime & Miso Dressing on Avocado Purée / Milk Mayonnaise

Article: Gardens: Forest gumption

Forest gardening is not about size, he says; it's a style of growing. "The point is to grow useful plants, particularly edibles." And the key to doing that is planting upwards, in vertical layers.

Blog Post & Recipe: Seared scallops with lime & miso dressing on avocado purée

We enjoyed this with sourdough baguette, but I was really craving another accompaniment which would have been perfect: I had it a little while ago at Zuma, where they serve an absolutely amazing tuna & salmon tartare with lotus chips and that addictive sheet of a prawn cracker with seaweed

Blog Post & Recipes: The Secrets and Science Behind Milk Mayonnaise

When these culinary opposites—milk and oil—are thrown together, they act a lot like warring spouses, which makes their participation in the creation of Portuguese maionese de leite (may-o-NEZ duh late), or milk mayonnaise, all the more amazing.

Milk Mayonnaise ... Variations: Cilantro and Ginger Mayonnaise, Anchovy Mayonnaise, Curry Mayonnaise, Tomato Mayonnaise

Chana Masala / Tabbouleh / Two Portuguese Dishes

Blog Post & Recipe: Spice up your life: Chana Masala

Ok, I know: chana masala does not necessarily require an entire day of stewing and futzing; unlike many curries, it is possible to build an acceptable depth of flavor in less than an hour. I, however, wanted to see what happened when it received the full treatment.

Blog Post & Recipe: Floyd’s Tabbouleh

Looking through [Keith] Floyd’s books there were lots of things I hadn’t tried and was intrigued by and more that I had made and enjoyed. Plenty of options then. In the end I settled on a simple tabbouleh not only because there are still plenty of good tomatoes around but also as it was the first Floyd recipe I ever made.

Article & Recipes: The New Portuguese Table: Exciting Flavors from Europe’s Western Coast

It was while sitting around the dinner table of my friend José Vilela, eating falling-off-the-bone partridge escabeche with a spice profile that unmoored the dish from its traditions, that I felt an internal crowbar-pop that finally freed me.

Featured recipe

* Sweet Lemon and Black Olive Wafers
* My Family’s White Beans and Sausage

Blood

Recipe: Black Pudding

Ingredients

1 litre blood of wild boar
oxtails
300g fat wild boar, cubed
1.5 large onions, diced
300g oatmeal, soaked
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp butter

Recipes: Sangue di Maiale

Two regional Italian recipes for pork-blood pudding.

TIPS FOR WORKING WITH PORK BLOOD
1. Gather the blood as it drains from the slashed throat of the pig.
2. Stir continually while the blood drains. This is to avoid clots. Clots affect the texture of the finished product which you want as smooth as a dense pudding.
3. It is preferred to use the traditional method of pig slaughter to gather blood. If you can't and have obtained blood from a slaughter house then be sure to strain it, before cooking.

… Sangieri di San Fili ... Sangguinaccio Cheitin

Article & Recipe: Boudin Noir

Follow the links in the article to find the recipes.

Boudin noir — blood sausage — is one of France’s oldest charcuterie preparations. It’s part of a sausage making tradition in France that has lasted well over 2000 years. “There is evidence of the activities of the lardarius, the Gaulish charcutier, in a number of bas-reliefs and inscriptions found at Narbone, Bordeaux and Cologne, and at Rheims, where a bas-relief shows two of these specialists at work…. All the items of charcuterie shown in the relief are easily identifiable: [blood sausages], strings of sausage, joints of pork, pig’s heads.” Although the raising and subsequent slaughter of the family pig was common in the French provinces up to the Second World War, today few families in the countryside raise their own pigs …

…

Boudin Noir … Boudin Grillé en Compote de Pommes Citronnée et Fruits Secs … Émincé de Boudin Noir aux Pommes … Tarte au Boudin Noir et aux Deux Pommes … Bouchées Croustillantes au Boudin Noir … Feuilletés aux Pomme et Boudin … Crème de Boudin Noir

Recipes: Food that does not taste like chicken

A collection of blood recipes, some of them sausage.

BLOOD SAUSAGE OR BLACK PUDDING … NAVAJO BLOOD SAUSAGE … WORSPE BLOED … BLOOD PANCAKES (VERIOHUKAISET) … BLOOD BREAD … SANGUINACCIO DOLCE … TIếT CANH (RAW BLOOD SOUP) … PENANG CURRY MEE … DINUGUAN … SAKSANG (PORK BITS WITH HOT SAUCE) … CZERNINA … CABIDELA … SWARTSOPPA … CANARD AU SANG