Category: Cook Books

Cook Books / Recipes

The Family Meal – Ferran Adrià – The Best Chef in The World

You can cook like the best chef in the world! All you have to do is buy the most popular cook book of the season; “The Family Meal/ Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià”. I received the cook book for my birthday a few weeks ago but it’s already one of my favorites! Chef Adrià is known as the best chef in the world and often referred to the as the father of molecular gastronomy and a Picasso of culinary art.

His first cook book for the home chef has beautiful step by step photos which will guide you through each recipe and it’s very easy to follow. This hardcover edition is destined to become a classic for all home cooks as well as chefs. Each of the 100 recipes in the book are inspired by the meals prepared for the elite chefs who worked at his restaurant;  El Bulli in Spain, also known as the greatest restaurant in the world for many years.

More than 2500 articles and 14,ooo pages  have been written about El Bulli which was only open for six months of the year.  It served only 50 guests per night, 8,000 per season but it received over 2 million reservations per year. This of course meant that only a small percent of exclusive guests were able to experience the best gourmet meal of their lifetime. In July of 2011 El Bulli closed and in 2014 but it will reopen as a creativity center for chefs. A documentary; El Bulli: Cooking in Progress is screening around the country including dates in December at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Portuguese Michelin star Chef, George Mendes was an apprentice at El Bulli in 2007 and talks about his experience below.

Excerpt from:

Chefs Assess El Bulli’s Legacy – Diners Journal NY Times by Julia Moskin…July 14, 2011

George Mendes, chef at Aldea in New York City and an apprentice at El Bulli in 2007
” So many young chefs come into the restaurant and want to learn to use xantham gum, but they don’t even know how to use salt yet. When I was training I felt it was my responsibility as a chef to learn the basics, and that is what Adrià did. He was a creative genius, but at the end of the day, he was also a Spanish chef and he knew that with all the foams and textures in the world, the food had to taste good. I took what he did and tried to cook from my Portuguese background. My duck and rice wouldn’t be as refined as it is without him, or my bacalao à Brás, a Portguese lunch of salt cod scrambled with eggs, crispy potatoes and black olives. Instead of serving it in a bowl as a lunch dish, I made a snack out of it and served it in an eggshell with a tiny wooden spoon. It makes people smile. Sometimes people forget about that playful, humorous side of Ferran and his food. I never forget what he would say every day at the morning meeting of all the chefs: “We are in what some people call the best kitchen in the world, about to embark on a 14-hour workday, and serve 50 people a meal they have waited years to eat. But please,à remember to have fun. It’s only cooking.”

Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations had a great segment on El Bulli that can explain what El Bulli was all about!… Enjoy the show! ……..

El Bulli Part I

El Bulli Part II

El Bulli Part III

Get the book or put it on your Christmas list and start cooking like the “Best Chef in the World”

Tia Maria!

 

Cook Books / Desserts / Holiday Recipes / Main Dish / Photo Gallery / Recipes / Side Dish

Ana Patuleia Ortins – Portuguese Homestyle Cooking

Cook book author Ana Patuleia Ortins begins her cook book’s website; Portuguese Homestyle Cooking with a welcoming phrase; “Welcome to the flavors of Portuguese Homestyle Cooking. Traditional Portuguese recipes combine a blend of flavors and techniques of many other cultures dating back centuries. My book, Portuguese Homestyle Cooking, gives an overview of centuries old cultural influences on Portugal’s cuisine.”

When I asked the Author how she was influenced and why she decided to write a Portuguese cook book she responded;

“Like most Portuguese girls, growing up in America, I grew up with a vast influence of Portuguese culture from my family and other Portuguese friends. I had to learn to sew, crochet, cook and clean, etc, etc, etc. Eventually I became a medical secretary, and while raising a family decided to follow my passion and went to culinary school.
The biggest influence for the cook book was my father’s passion for our traditional recipes. I realized when my father passed away that I needed to record these favorites for my children or the real versions, as we knew them would be lost. After the urging of one of my brothers, what was to be a book for my children, became the idea to make a community book which then went on to be what it is today.”

Her original book was first published in 2008, but a new edition with a beautiful new cover was just released in 2011. The book has received great  Reviews including the following in the Boston Globe.

 
Portuguese Homestyle Cooking by Ana Patuleia Ortins


 

“Startlingly delicious…superb…Ortin’s meticulously assembled collection should be widely welcomed…liberally interspersed with words of wisdom from her ‘Pai’ and classic tidbits of folklore…extremely thorough, addressing not only mainland cooking but Portuguese-American variations and the distinctive styles of the Azores islands…Though often built from just a few ingredients, Ortin’s recipes usually yield spectacular results…. Longer more complicated recipes are just as rewarding.”
–The Boston Globe

Ana has many favorite Portuguese dishes. “I love Pork with Clams, made in the real Alentejo style with massa de pimentão (red pepper paste). I also love Bacalhau com Natas, – but I could go on forever.” She says.
Although Ana hasn’t been to Portugal in a few years, she longs to take a trip back to visit to her homeland along her family and her husband who is also Portuguese and from Graciosa, in the Azores.

You may contact the Author on her website with any questions about her recipes.
Free Cook Book Giveaway! … Sign up for Ana’s newsletter this month and just mention ‘Tia Maria’s Blog”. She will give away one cook book to my fans! * (Contest ended Sept 2011)

Thank you, Ana for the great cook book and for the following classic Portuguese barbecue chicken that we all love. This recipe is perfect for “tailgating” and to make “party wings”.

Frango Piri Piri – From Portuguese Homestyle Cooking (2008)

Variations of this dish abound, from the simple basting of hot sauce while grilling to the addition of other seasoning including whiskey and a mayonnaide type coating. Mine is a simple one that I have made for years. I hope you like it. You can use small fryer chickens but I find cornish hens are really tasty for this dish. the sweet paprika is a counterpoint to the hot chili. With a lighter hand with the spices, use the seasonings to flavor shrimp and the grill for Camarao Pir Piri.

Serves 2-4

1 tablespoon coarse kosher or sea salt

4 cloves garlic, halved

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro or parsley

1/4 teaspoon ground black or white pepper

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 to 3/4 cup olive oil as needed

1/4 cup hot chili sauce (malequeta moida) or 1/2 cup bottled hot sauce

1. Toss the salt into a mortar and using the pestle crush the garlic into the salt forming a paste. Grind in the paprika, follow by the cilantro or parsley and the ground pepper. Mix in the wine vinegar. Drizzle in enough olive oil to make a mushy spreadable paste. Stir in the hot sauce of your choice.

2. Cut the cornish hens from the stem to stern, down the belly to open them up. Turn them over and cut along the back bone so that you cut each chicken in half. You also can just leave them butterflied. Place them in a non-reactive pan. Coat them with the garlic seasoning sauce and turn to evenly season them. Cover the dish and chill over night turning occasionally and at least once before retiring for the night.

3. Bring them to room temperature about 1/2 hour before cooking. Drain and reserve the marinade, you will need it for basting.

4. Place skin side up on the hot grill, basting and grilling for about 15 minutes. Turn the birds over, skin side down, and continue to grill for another 15 minutes. Stop basting about 2 minutes before the birds are done so that any raw marinade applied will have time to cook. If using a thermometer, the internal Temperature of the thick part of the thigh should be 165 degrees F. In any event, when cooking chicken, the juices should be clear. Serve with a bottle of hot sauce on the side for extra dousing. Serve with Sauteed Broccoli Rabe or turnip greens and fried potatoes.

Cook Books / Recipes

Eat Portugal | The essential guide to Portuguese eating

Eat Portugal | The essential guide to Portuguese eating.

http://www.portugaldailyview.com/01-whats-new/eat-portugal-a-guide

New Cook book; The Essential Guide to Portuguese Food, by Lucy Pepper and Célia Pedroso, offers 52 recipes and is a glossary and a dictionary.

“Lucy Pepper is a British illustrator and writer who has lived in Portugal since 1999 with her Portuguese family. Her first cookery book, O Livro das Receitas Nojentas, a children”s book full of nasty looking things to eat, was published in 2006. Eat Portugal”

“Célia Pedroso is a Portuguese journalist specializing in travel and lifestyle. Her work appears in Metro International and Portuguese magazine Visão Vida & Viagens.In 2010, she co-authored the biography of Portuguese politician, Adelino Amaro da Costa. Eat Portugal”

This cook book is now available in printed form in Portuguese Book Shops, or as an ebook from Mediabooks. Pick up a copy as a gift to yourself or a fellow “Portuguese Foodie” if you plan to visit Portugal this year

Watch this video as the author talks about her favorite Portuguese foods.
http://www.portugaldailyview.com/01-whats-new/eat-portugal-a-guide

Following is the post from: Eat Portugal

Posted on July 5, 2011.”Eat Portugal/The essential guide to Portuguese eating”

Sit down to eat with the Portuguese and before pudding has arrived, they will be discussing the next meal, their favourite restaurant, or where to find the best cured sausages.

Come to Portugal on holiday, however, and you may miss out on all the really interesting food that they”re talking about.

Deciding what to eat can be quite tough if you don”t speak the language.
It”s often easier to plump for the simple option of something grilled than risk trying something else that might turn out to be some bit of offal you really can”t stomach.

With the help of Eat Portugal, you can dare to be bold and be surprised by Portuguese cuisine.

Lucy Pepper and Célia Pedroso have put together an essential guide book for you, with a selection of simple recipes, an extensive dictionary (English-Portuguese & Portuguese-English), a glossary and some other useful information for your trip to Portugal and help you to eat well.
Portuguese cookery is strongly rooted in peasant cookery; simple ingredients and simple recipes that make the most of produce in season and that which is preservable through the winter. Being a cuisine of the countryside and the sea, it has been passed down through the centuries by word of mouth and it is hard to find two recipes alike, even for the simplest dishes. A comprehensive and definitive encyclopedia of Portuguese cookery would be enormous and probably impossible, not because Portuguese cookery is so vast and complex – it isn’t – but because everyone has a different, strongly-held opinion about how dishes are cooked. Each region has its own set of recipes, delicacies and traditions that the others don’t even know about. There are cakes that have different names in different places and petiscos with the same name but different ingredients, depending on what city you are in. You’ll start to notice that if you cross the country from North to the South or fly to the islands.

Cook Books / Recipes

LaSalette Cookbook

Coming soon… “New Portuguese Cuisine”..LaSalette cook book.

LaSalette Restaurant
452 First Street East, Suite H
Sonoma, CA 95476
(707) 938-1927

Press Article:

Chef Manuel Azevedo’s long awaited cookbook is nearing completion. The cookbook will include approximately 250 individual recipes combined to create nearly 100 dishes. Extraordinary photographs by Portuguese photographer Henrique Bagulho will complete the over 300 page book. The reader will learn how the chef combines the flavors of his homeland Portugal with the bounty of Sonoma. Seasonal chapters filled with extraordinary photographs will inspire readers to create their own “CozinhaNovaPortuguesa”. Retail price will be approximately $40.00. To reserve your cookbook, please email (lasalettedining@lasalette.com) and specify how many copies you would like and if you would like the English or Portuguese version. All cookbooks reserved early will be signed by Chef Azevedo.

Cook Books / Desserts / Holiday Recipes / Recipes

Arroz Doce – Portuguese Rice Pudding

Come on and jump in! It’s delicious!

 

Arroz Doce – Sweet Rice Pudding,  has always been my family’s favorite served on Christmas Eve. This is one of the most famous Portuguese desserts served around the Holidays and at celebrations. But I everyone loves it any time of the year! It’s pure Portuguese comfort in one bite!

Aletria, a sweet pasta dessert is also a traditional dessert for the Holidays. Enjoy!

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients: 

3 cups whole milk (scalding)
3  egg yolks
1 cup rice (preferably Carolina short or long grain)
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 slice of lemon zest
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp butter
powdered cinnamon
 
Watch our Youtube video for a demonstration. Subscribe to get latest videos! Enjoy!
 


Instructions
1. In a large heavy saucepan, bring the water, cinnamon stick, and lemon peel to a boil.
2. Add rice, bring to a boil and cook on medium heat until all the water has evaporated.
 3. Add the hot milk and cook for at least 25 minutes on low heat stirring once in a while.
4. Add the sugar and butter, stir and cook for 5 minutes longer. Turn off heat.

Meanwhile beat egg yolks.

Temper the eggs by adding a few tablespoons of the rice mixture to the eggs and mix well.

Remove from heat. Add the remaining eggs into the rice and stir well.

*Be sure the rice is not boiling. Simmer for about 1 minute.

Remove lemon peel and cinnamon stick.

Pour into a large serving platter or individual servings.

Let cool and garnish with powdered cinnamon.

To make design: Dip a small shot glass into water, then into the cinnamon.

 

Gently indent desired circles to form design of your choice.

Store in refrigerator up to 3 days.

Here’s the gallery of the photos I took.

 

 

Cook Books / Recipes

The New Portuguese Table by David Leite

This new cook book by David Leite will inspire you to try the classic dishes and he also shares his own unique take on the originals.

His nostalgic trip back to his roots in Portugal will remind you of your own family’s traditions. As I prepared one of my favorite dishes,  “Cod Fish Cakes” , I became slightly teary eyed as I saw the vision of my dear mother standing beside me, and showing me, almost the identical recipe as his when I was about twelve so many years ago.

Don’t be afraid! Go back, explore your cultural roots and carry on the traditions of our Portuguese cuisine into the melting pot of what we call “America”.

Bye

Tia Maria

The New Portuguese Table by David Leite