I fancied grilled sardines again, since we are in Lisbon now. They were not on the menu we saw at the restaurant. In fact, the menu was in Portuguese so we had to guess what they were but I did not see any words that resembled sardines. The owner (?) does not speak English but I asked him anyway if he had sardines, which he understood. He went away to the kitchen to check with the chef, came back to give me a nod of 'OK'. "Excellent, I can have sardines today!".
In the meantime, a ceramic bowlful of dish had arrived at the table behind my husband. He saw some prawns in what looked like some kind of risotto like consistency so he checked the menu. He asked the owner, pointing at the dish which was brought to the table behind him discreetly and asked him what it was. The owner then pointed at the item listed on the menu and said, "Prato do dia, Accorda de marisco!" We guessed that he was saying about some kind of seafood dish as today's special.
This became his lunch for the day.
This was an interesting dish. We were trying to work out what was in this dish, apart from obvious such as prawns, chopped garlic (lots of them), coriander and some chilli. We could not ask the owner as he does not speak English. My husband enjoyed this dish, especially its being traditional Portuguese dish and something different for a change.
Later on I checked on internet. Basically it appears that this is a traditional Portuguese bread-based stew with a consistency similar to risotto, made of mashed bread which was slowly simmered in a fish broth, using leftover bread, with garlic, coriander, olive oil, white wine and salt, add cooked prawns and with final touch of a raw egg, stirred into the dish before serving. Some website also offers recipe. Break the stale bread into bits and cover with water just enough to turn the break into a sponge. Apparently the consistency should not be too liquid but more like porridge. Add the olive oil to mix slowly until the bread becomes a paste. One recipe mentioned about adding piri-piri sauce - that must be how the taste of chilli came from....
This is a clever dish, using left over rustic bread, adding prawns or cods which you can source easily in Portugal. Italians also use left over stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry to make Panzanella which is a Tuscan salad of bread and tomatoes, adding onions and basil, dressed with olive oil and vinegar.
I like this kind of dish and it's definitely 'blog-worthy', I think. If we were not having lunch at this restaurant, we would not have known about this dish. Very interesting.
In the meantime, I was eating my grilled sardines, which were prepared to perfection. It also came with sliced peppers and white onions pickled in white wine vinegar, which I wish to try making once we go back home for accompaniment. I really enjoyed everything, just like last time.
We ate all these with a half bottle of Vino Verde (Portuguese 'green' wine).
When we finish our meals, I wanted to try local dessert but not being able to understand menu, I asked the owner what was 'house special' dessert on the menu. He gave me a nod with smile, went to the kitchen and came back with the actual dessert to show it to me. To be honest, I was still not sure what it was; it looked like a gigantic marshmallow with orange jelly.
I became very intrigue by this dessert. I was not sure if I would enjoy this or not but I felt bad sending it back to the kitchen so I gave the owner with a nod of yes. He placed the plate in front of me.
I guess the main part must have been made with white egg with lots of sugar but the texture is soft mash-marrow, covered with glowing orange coloured jelly like staff. I could not guess what this was; was it orange, apricot but it did not have much fruity taste to it other than sugar. This was a very interesting dessert - we kept eating it. To this date, I have not worked out what this dessert was and my internet research did not prove to be illuminating however this glowing dessert was starting to grow on me somehow. Well, in the end we ate it all up.
We finished off our meal with Portuguese bica.
That's all forks!
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