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Migas and Açorda - regional Portuguese cooking

7:25 PM David Monteiro 0 Comments Category : , , , , , , ,


Açorda and Migas
In this post I will be talking about regional Portuguese cooking.
Before I explain what an açorda or a migas are I will start by saying that they are two Portuguse regional dishes that, by an unknown reason, most of Portuguese people confuse  them with the exception of the alentejanos, of course.
Alentejo is the region south of the River Tagus.
In Portuguese, Alentejo means beyond the Tagus and that was what the ancients knew much time before Portugal was born as an independent country, before the VIII century AD.
During the Moorish invasion (VIII AD) the Moorish started to call “al gharb” to the southern part of Portugal.  “al gharb” means “the west” and, in fact, that territory was their western land.
With the Moorish occupation Alentejo was confined to the land between the river Tagus and the “al gharb”, the actual Algarve.
In Alentejo the cereal fields are quite abundant. And you will find the largest Portuguese lowland area, excellent to grow cereals such as wheat. Consequently bread became an important element in the local gastronomy along History.
It has always been a poor and sparsely populated region so, bread is a valuable food resource being both abundant and inexpensive. Still today you will find several dishes in which bread is present such as migas and açorda.
The bread from Alentejo is extraordinarily good, heavy and you can preserve it for a quite some time.
Migas

Imagine a dish where you will have hard bread soaked in hot water, mixed with meat’s sauce and fried up until it becomes roll like an omelet.
The meat was seasoned with ground pepper and garlic on the day before than you will take it to the pan adding some water to don’t stick. From here you will get some sauce you will use to  fried up the migas like was said before.
Serve the migas together with the meat and some orange and VOILá :) ready to be appreciated at your table :)
Açorda










It’s a soup made with bread, coriander, garlic, salt, water, poached egg and olive oil.
Some people would prefer the bread in small pieces and some people will prefer to wait until the bread gets softer.
Now that you know what migas and açorda are I will be waiting for you com come to Portugal to taste them or cook them with me :) it will be fun.
David Monteiro

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