Chanfana [Goat Soup] Craving!

As a Welshman, lamb has always been my favourite meat. About halfway through my first year in Portugal, I developed a bit of a craving. The general consensus was that it was difficult to find, so one of my colleagues insisted I try a local delicacy; Chanfana. It's a delicious goat stew, usually served in a clay pot. The sauce, if I remember rightly, is a kind of red wine sauce with a bit of a spice kick. The meat is usually cooked for so long that it softly just peels off the bone.

Image plundered from Google Images (as I've not eaten it lately enough to take a photo!)

Anyway, typing about it makes me want to eat it even more. The reason I mention it is that there are two regions in my area of Portugal that claim they invented it (or at least claim a strong affinity with it). These are Miranda do Covo and Vila Nova de Poiares. Every year, they both hold a mini Chanfana festival, and Vila Nova de Poiares are hosting theirs this weekend. The colleague who introduced me to the delicious meal invited me to come along, insisting that I could alter my New Year's Resolution to include one meat a month, and this could be that meat! As I was slightly drunk when he recommended this alteration to me, I was very tempted. Willpower prevailed and I had to turn him down. I would have gone to the event too (and been tempted even more) if I didn't already have other plans for this weekend.

This dish will most certainly be one of the first things I eat when my six-month penance is over.


On an unrelated note, I'd like to put a shout out to my good friend, Chris Carra, who helped me set up this blog and has recently set up a blog to help small businesses with their own blogging. You can check out his advice and writing at http://www.small-business-blogging.com/2014/01/twitter-rules-for-small-businesses.html

How to Negotiate an Electrical Problem in Portuguese

In the morning, I woke up to the sound of a loud pop. Thinking that maybe something had fallen off a table, or there was a kind but clumsy stranger in my flat, I promptly went back to sleep. It was only when I woke up for the second time, looked at my phone and realised that it was no longer on charge that I made the assumption that there was a problem. A quick test of the bedside lamp, which failed to come on, confirmed my suspicions. The electricity had gone.

Being a well-skilled amateur electrician, I proceeded directly to the fuse box, flicked it back on and it immediately turned off again. My master theory was that perhaps a fuse had gone. I would take the fuse box off, find the rogue fuse and then go around the corner to the local electronics shop and get a new one. I rushed excitedly to my Portuguese dictionary to find the word for fuse. "Fusível." An easy one to remember.

Unfortunately, the fuse box was nearly impossible to remove so I did the next thing a good amateur electrician would do. I phoned someone who knew about these things; namely my landlord. My landlord knows how to say hello in English, and that's about it. I know no vocabulary for electrical things (not even the word for plug.) I know "desligar" (turn off) and "ligar" (turn on).

The conversation was brief but involved the following wonderful moments;
- me explaining that it must be a bad "fusível"
- me shouting excitedly the word "fusível" many times
- him telling me to "desligar" select things then "ligar" the "electricidade" again
- him repeating instructions to "desligar" things despite my insistence that it was a problem with the "fusível"

Well, to cut a long story short, it wasn't the "fusível". The problem was discovered a day later when a proper electrician was called and it turned out to be a dodgy old cable that needed replacing. A bit beyond my expertise.

I will never forget the word "fusível" and I will endeavour to use at least 10-15 times in random conversation before I leave.

Vegetable Soup [Cawl]

Cawl is pretty much the welsh word for soup; but soup with vegetables, and usually either lamb or beef. When I was growing up it was the only way I'd eat vegetables, and in fact became one of my favourite meals. The first time I moved away, it was important that my mum taught my the recipe. At the age of 18, for some reason making vegetable soup was something that needed writing down but now it's like second nature.

The ingredients for my "veggie" soup are;
- some potatoes
- some carrots
- some leek
- some vegetable stock
- salt
- pepper

(I would also most definitely add some suede in there, but this vegetable doesn't seem to exist in Portugal)

I've left out quantities because it really depends how much you want to make. The ratio of carrots to potatoes also depends on your fondness for either.

Useless together, but united they are unstoppable!

Method:

1. Dice up your potatoes.

2. Slice up your carrots.

3. Slice up your leek.

4. Make your vegetable stock (I used a stock cube...easy!)
5. Put all your ingredients in a pan, with plenty of water.

6. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Put on a low boil for around 3-4 hours (I actually left mine for about half the day on a simmer) until the vegetables are nice and soft.

A mélange of healthy colour.

8. Serve with bread.

I used "pao de agua" - nice thick crusty bread is a brilliant friend o' soup! 

TIP: This is the gift that keeps giving. The longer you leave it, the better it is. Heated up the next day, this is a brilliant dish to prepare and serve throughout the week. It's also a great way to go if you're on a budget. 

Mackerel Experiment #1

This is my first "recipe" and my first stab at something new in 2014.

After hearing about my fish challenge, a colleague lent me Gordon Ramsay's "Passion for Seafood" which he had been given as a gift but found unnecessarily complex, and it is! Wanting to try something new this weekend, I delved in to the tome and found a lot of very fancy dishes that were quite frankly a little off-putting. Then I found a simple dish with mackerel and seasoned potato slices. The dish sounds simple enough, and after cross-referencing with a few recipes on the internet that were a little less ambitious than Ramsay's, I set off.

Firstly, the ingredients I used are as follows;
- 3 mackerels (make sure the fishmonger guts the fish, etc.)
- 3 slices of lemon
- 2 or 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- 300g potatoes (diced)
- 50g butter (cut in cubes)
- thyme (fresh or dried herb)
- paprika
- black pepper
- salt
- olive oil

Method:

Stage 1 - Prepare the Potatoes
I did this first because before putting my potatoes in the oven, I like to pre-boil them, just to make sure they're extra soft.

 1. First, peel the potatoes, and then cut them in to squares.

Choppity, chop those potatoes!

2. Boil them for between 10-20 minutes with some salt. When you can just about to put a fork in to them, they're ready. You want to be careful not to get them too soft.
3. Then, leave them to cool for around 20 minutes.
4. Now, put them in an oven dish and it's time to add the herbs.

Herbalicious!

5. When the potatoes are cool enough, add your paprika, thyme, salt, and pepper, and be liberal with your sprinklings. The more you add, the better your flavour (but don't go too crazy!) Cut your butter up in to cubes, and mix those in to, ensuring they're equally distributed amongst the potatoes.

This was the only dish I had, so it looks like there aren't as many potatoes there.

6. Now your potatoes are ready to go in the oven. There's no need to cover with foil, you want the potatoes to crisp up a little bit. When you're ready, stick the oven on 180 and pop them in. They should take about 30 mins but the longer you leave them, the better. Just make sure they don't burn.

Stage 2 - The Mackerel

This really is the easy part. It takes about 5 minutes to prepare and 10-15 to cook.

1. First, get your mackerels out of the fridge. It's important that the fish have been gutted, and the non-edible scales removed. Just get your local fishmonger to "sort it out." If in Portugal, then apparently you want them to "arranjar" it.

2. Slice your lemon in to three decently sized slices. You want the lemon juice in them to soak in to the meat of the fish.

Happily awaiting their lemony destiny.

3. Insert the lemon slices in to the middle of each mackerel. This should be easy enough to do if your fishmonger has sorted their less desirable insides for you.

4.Next you need to make some incisions in to the side of the flesh. I made two on each side of mine, but depending on the size of your mackerel you can do more, or fewer.

I've made my incisions, next I'll put my herbs inside.

5. Chop up your rosemary and insert it in to the incisions you've made in the flesh. Try and stuff in as much as possible. Mine were overflowing with herbs and the rest were easy enough to spread over the rest of the fish when it came out.

6. You need to time this with your potatoes, but when you think they have about 10 minutes left, your fish can go under the grill.

7. It's very important that you brush your fish with olive oil so that it doesn't stick to the grill - like mine did. I had fish eye all over the place! Not very appealing.

Looking delicious and excited to be grilled!

8. Grill them under a heat of about 190-200 C and make sure you turn them over so each side is equally cooked. They will probably need to be in the grill for around 10-15 minutes.

Stage 3 - Any Extras?

This is where you might want to add a bit of salad, or some more veg. I opted for some steamed carrots.

...and voila!

Absolutely delicious!

This really was easy to make. I spent a lot of time on the potatoes, and they were, quite frankly, awesome. At first, I wondered if the lemon made any difference. The difference is subtle, but it's there. The meat on the underside, closest to the lemon, tasted a great deal nicer than the rest, which was still amazing.

You may need a bowl, or separate plate for your fish bones and fish bits.

Nao falo ingles!!

Two of my favourite phrases during my first two years in Portugal (from September 2012 onwards) were "Nao falo Portugues" and "Fala Ingles?" - "I don't speak Portuguese" and "Do you speak English?" That last question I'd break out as often as I could, even if I knew how to say it but wanted to be lazy. As 2013 wore on, I tried to replace these phrases with "Eu so falo um pouco de Portugues" - "I only speak a little Portuguese."

As I'm trying to integrate Portuguese in to my life more this year, I have decided that I will banish those phrases from my interactions completely, and though I can generally get by when buying train tickets, ordering food and all those other easy things, there are some situations which are more difficult for me, especially as I lack the proper vocabulary.

Today, I needed to perform two tasks. The first was in Vodafone, adding a 500MB monthly internet allowance to my sim-plan. This isn't an essential part of living in Portugal, but it is nice to be able to talk to people from home via whatsapp or facebook when I'm out and about, and it's also handy to google things when out and about. Oh, the ridiculous and unnecessary comforts of having a smartphone at your fingertips.
The second task was to buy fish. I've decided to go easy this weekend and grill some mackerel (carapau) with some potatoes (blog post and "recipe" to follow.)

My gym is next door to the nearest shopping centre, so killing two birds with one stone, I went to the gym, then went to Vodafone. Sometimes, when I get nervous, or have no idea what I'm saying, or am in a bit of an awkward situation, I sweat. After an intense workout at the gym, a hot shower, and a quick change in to clean clothes, I popped over to Vodafone. I began with some very terrible Portuguese and picked out about 2 out of 100 words that the shop assistant replied with. We struggled through, I stuck true to not speaking any English (apart from when the assistant spoke English and I replied with "Como se-diz 'text messages' em portugues?" [How do you say text messages in Portuguese? - the answer was "mensagens"]. It only took about 5 minutes or so but felt like forever, and I slipped in what I think will be my new favourite phrase - "Eu falo portugues mal mas preciso practicar mais" [I speak Portuguese badly but I need to practise more.]

Why bother with this phrase? Two reasons; principally it makes me feel better about myself and acts as an apology and secondly, and perhaps more importantly for my practice, a lot of Portuguese people will try and switch to English when they realise you speak terrible Portuguese. It's easy when this happens to switch with them and stop practicising. To her credit, the shop assistant only translated two or three words and we got there in the end.

When I left the shop, owing to the previously mentioned reasons, my forehead was a waterfall of sweaty goodness.

Next stop was the fish counter at Jumbo (one of the supermarket chains here). This was a lot less painless (for me, but not the fish). I easily ordered two "carapaus" (mackerels) and was immediately corrected to the correct plural version (which I cannot remember, but know the pronunciation changes at the end of the word). When I realised how cheap they were, I upped my order to three and then she asked me what I thought was "are you having these for dinner?" A nice courtesy question to which my favourite "respone for all questions" was "sim" [yes]. She proceeded then to gut them and defin them and do all the things I really wouldn't have a clue about. In hindsight she asked me if I wanted to her to "arranjar" the fish - essentially sort them out, which I was very grateful for.

Duck Paté

The first day of my Pescetarian Challenge was almost undone by a little bit of duck paté.

I spent the last few days celebrating New Year's Eve in the Black Forest in Germany. Fourteen of us who had all met between January - June of 2013 in Coimbra, Portugal (mainly through people doing their Erasmus year there) met again in Germany and celebrated a very international NYE.

Posing in front of Titisee-Neustadt where we stayed in Germany.

A small part of our initial big shop.

We bought a lot of generic food in Germany, and people also brought food from all corners (well, 3 or 4 corners...) of Europe; there was cheese and deliciousness from the Netherlands, a strange mustardy dip and Slivovicia (a strangely tasty but somewhat throat burny plum liquor) from Slovakia, then baguettes, blue cheese, wine and mousse de canard (the offending duck paté) from France, whereas I brought scotch whiskey from the UK and Port wine (of course) from Portugal. In addition to this, we also took advantage of the fact that we were in Germany and ordered in a few crates of superior German beer.

Just before sitting down to eat.

My last meal as a meat-eater in 2013 was actually a mélange of various small nibbles/dishes people had made; pasta salad, potato salad, garlic bread, normal salad, and my contribution a bowl of mini bratwurst sausages, peppered and onioned. My last meat of 2013, and hopefully until June 2nd, were these mini bratwursts, which were lovely, by the way.

Enjoying a German brewski after food.

I was hoping to take good pictures of all the food was eaten to document it for this blog, and especially the chili sem carne we had the following day, but I got a bit lost up in the moment. In fact, the photos that I have here were taken with Filip's camera, which is much better than my own iPhone camera.


So what about the duck paté? The story wasn't really that incredible, but now you have the important context; that there was a lot of international food on offer. January 1st arrived after a lot of drinks, shots, unsafe firework displays, dancing on a snow-soaked roof in socks, and much reveling. Bizarrely, the day after I had no hangover. We went snowboarding in Feldberg, I had my first gluewein of 2014 and we returned to the cottage to eat.

Coimbra Badiboopi does snowboarding in Feldberg

Whilst half the crew slept off hangovers and rested up for our last night together, Jules, from the Netherlands, got to work on his chili sem carne. He was helped out by a three-man crew consisting of an Aussie, a Welshman and a German, who chopped the veg and chatted away. The Aussie, Liam, is working in Chamonix, in France and had brought with him a few bottles of red wine, which we were happily devouring, some cheeses and some mousse de canard. The vegetables were chopped so we brought some bread in to the cheese party and cracked on to the cheese. It was amazing. French cheese and paté brings me back a few years to when I used to holiday in France with my family. Of course, back then it was jus d'orange I was drinking instead of wine. As cheese was passed around, I casually asked Filip, who was on the other side of the table, to pass me over some duck paté on bread. It looked amazing, and as he spread it over the little chunk of baguette, I felt my mouth watering in delightful anticipation. Just as it was passed over to me, my brain kicked in to gear and reminded me that as of today I had decided to give up meat, and, unfortunately, a duck was still a non-fish creature.

So, that was it. I said it wasn't really that exciting a moment. But the fact that my challenge was almost destroyed on the first day by the simple habit of enjoying meat means I have to be a lot more careful in the future.

Damn you non-aquatic delicious meat creature!

Note: A big thank you to Filip for having a better camera than me, and allowing some good pictures (except the duck...thank google for that one!)

Operation Pysgod

Before I begin, a little about me; I'm a Welshman teaching English in Portugal. I've been here since September 2012, I speak limited Portuguese and I live on a diet of meat, potatoes, rice, pasta and chocolate. I avoid vegetables and shun things I prejudge to look disgusting.

In July 2014 I will be leaving Portugal behind and returning to the UK. Until that time, I will be living the life of a pescetarian, travelling as much as Portugal as I can and trying tragically to have as many terrible conversations in bad Portuguese as I can.

Why not eat meat?

Well, in 2013 I decided to start running, properly. During this time I changed my diet slightly and for over one week (a long time in the life of someone like me) I accidentally realised that I had cut meat out of my diet completely. This was an unintentional result of my making vegetable soup, tuna pasta dishes, and (food of the Gods), salmon. A week or two after as I tucked in to a bit of delicious chicken, I thought, do I really need this? Could I survive on just fish?

Thus began the challenge. Why not just eat fish? It's thought to be healthier, happier and more animal friendly. After all, fish aren't as cute as pigs and cows and sheep and all that, so aren't I a better person if I just eat fish? No, maybe not and as selfish as it may sound, I don't really care about that. Animals were put on this earth to be delicious. As were fish.

Truth be told, I don't really eat as much fish I'd like. I tend to avoid seafood and the idea of eating crustaceans confuses me. But I live in Portugal and Portugal is home to a million, billion recipes of codfish and other seafood delights. So, while I am here I am going to sample some of those fishy delights and lay off the beef.

The challenge is such; survive 6 months from January until June by not eating meat. On June 2nd, my birthday, I will celebrate by a big meat blowout. But until then I CANNOT and MUST NOT eat any meat.

The reasons are threefold, in order of least importance.

1. A pesceterian diet is thought by some to be a much healthier alternative to eating meat.

2. I have 6 months left in Portugal and I need a little push to try out all their fishy treats.

3. I don't think I can do it, and that represents a hell of a challenge.

This blog will detail my efforts to steer clear of meat and my efforts to cook up scrumptious seafood dishes. I aim to cook something substantial at least once a week and will stick my efforts on here as well as interesting recipes.

Furthermore, I will continue with increased urgency to try and learn Portuguese and will detail the hilarity of those attempts on here. This may conclude in the summer with an accredited Portuguese course to prove that I have B1 level Portuguese ability.

Lastly, I will be aiming to spend my final six months in Portugal visiting all the places I've yet to go; the Algarve, the Alentejo, the North, etc etc. A later blog post will detail the places I aim to travel and how I aim to go about them.

So, bear with me on my first blog, my first blog post, and the ramblings of a man who tries to get by on fish, poor Portuguese and a limited travelling budget.