ingredients:

1 liter of milk
1 liter of spirits
1 pound of sugar
2 vanilla beans
Half board chocolate and lemon slices
preparation:
After boiling the milk and cold, join it brandy, sugar, grated chocolate, vanilla reduced to small pieces and lastly the lemon. Let it in infusion for 8 days while stirring daily and at the same time with a wooden spoon. That done, wipe clean, let rest well and strain for bottling.

Origin in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal).

The Pillory, also popularly known as "picota" in Portugal, is a stone column placed in a public place in a town or village where they exposed and punished criminals in old days. The pillory was also a evidence and instrument of feudal jurisdiction given to bishops, and monasteries.

The pillories were, at least since the late fifteenth century, considered the standard or symbol of municipal liberty.

It seems that before the fifteenth century some executions were done in pillories. But thereafter there is no evidence, at least in relation to executions, which were done in the gallows after having exposed the "criminal" in the pillory for people's knowledge.

In Portugal, the pillories were located always in front of the village city hall, since the twelfth century. Many had, at the top, a small house-shaped gatehouse, made ​​of iron bars, where criminals were exposed to public shame. In other towns, the prisoners were tied to the iron rings and flogged or maimed, depending on the seriousness of the offense and the customs of the time.

Inseparable on the Portuguese Christmas table, the “Filhoses” or “Filhós”... let’s call them just “donuts” are a fried sweet that everyone seems to like.
Many decades ago, it was customary for families to spend the Christmas Eve frying the “donuts”, was more a mean of socializing than just to bake a sweet, was a time where neighbors drifted in and out of each other's homes and where to leave the door locked was a almost nonexistent habit... Today this tradition has disappeared entirely, as well the friendly neighbors open doors... perhaps in some small villages this stills goes on!
Here it is the recipe... we hope you enjoy!

(It's a bit tiring preparing them since we have to knead the dough with our hands as is done with the traditional bread making!)

Ingredients:

750 g wheat flour
20 g yeast
1 dl milk
1c. tea salt
8 eggs
1 dl oil
1 dl brandy
oil for frying
sugar
ground cinnamon

Preparation:

1st. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk and joins it a little flour and salt. Mix to obtain a soft dough. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.
2nd. Pour the dough in a bowl, add a little olive oil and three beaten eggs. Mix everything well, hitting with the hand open.
3rd. Then join the remaining olive oil, brandy and eggs left, kneading, or better, beating the batter. This should be milder than for bread. If necessary, add a little milk.
4th. Cover the dough with a cloth and allowed it to ferment for 4 hours in a climate temperature.
5th. Then, put the oil for frying in a deep skillet (the ones you normally use for French fries) on medium heat.
With your hands wetted, with olive oil, take off pieces of dough, about the size of an egg, stretch the dough in to a round slice as thin as possible, making holes with the ​​fingertips.
6th. Put the “donut” in the oil in the skillet and with a fork, force the dough to stay in shape for the sides, stretching it, because there is a tendency to grow up.
7th. After cook on both sides, (when ins in a golden color) remove and drain the excess of oil on paper towels. This should be done with caution, because the “donut” is hot and presents themselves thin and bumpy.
8th. Sprinkling with sugar and cinnamon.

Note: Contrary to what usually happens with fried food these “donuts” get softer as the days pass by.

Because Christmas is coming is time for posting sweet things! ;) so here it is for your December 24 table!

"Azevias de Grão" - Chickpeas Flounder

Ingredients for 26 flounder:

• 600g flour
• 60g lard
• 40g margarine
• 50 ml of brandy
• Zest of one orange
• Juice of an orange
• 200 ml of warm water
• 1 pinch of salt
• 400g of cooked chickpeas made mashed
• 350g Sugar
• Zest of a lemon
• 8 egg yolks
• 3 tablespoons of Pumpkin Jam
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Sugar for dusting
• Oil for frying

Preparation:

1st.
In a bowl, mash nicely the flour, pinch of salt, lard, margarine, orange zest, brandy and orange juice.
While kneading, add warm water gradually.
Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.
If the dough is too soft, add a little flour.
It may happen due to different flours used because some absorb more liquid than others, depending on the brand.
Let the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

2nd.
In a pot, bring to boil some water, sugar and lemon zest.
Stir and boil 2 minutes.
Add the mashed chickpeas and cinnamon.
Stir well.
After all well mixed, add the squash and sweet gems disturbed.
Stir until the cream thickens and when you start doing a road at the bottom of the pan, remove from heat and let it cool down.

3rd.
Sprinkle well the countertop with flour and place the dough on it.
Sprinkle the dough with flour and extend it with a rolling pin.
Over the dough, place a spoonful of filling.
Fold the dough just like if you were making patties and cut it pressing well the edges.

4th.
Fry on both sides in the hot oil.
Remove to a plate with paper towels to absorb the excess of oil.

5th.
Sprinkle the flounders with sugar.
And they are ready to serve... in our PT Style!

Original portuguese post at: http://www.saborintenso.com/f23/azevias-grao-1173/

We are getting in to a very special time in the year for many people around the world. Especially for children... Christmas!

Christmas has become a season celebrated worldwide in a almost similar way regardless of language or the Country where we are... Santa Claus, the showy and glittering Christmas Tree, the presents they are globalized elements that make Christmas a celebration that goes beyond the religious tradition.

In spite of everything, in Portugal there are still some traditions that resist the typical Americanization of the season.

In Portugal, for example one of the traditions that resist is the delivery of the presents at midnight and not on the morning of December 25... so all children endure overnight until they hear the sound the twelve strikes and finaly run like crazy to the Christmas tree!

Here there was never the idea that was Santa Claus that would deliver the presents to the little ones, traditionally who gave them was the Baby Jesus.
Santa Claus eventually began to earn his place of prominence, but in more rural areas the elders still mention the "presents of Baby Jesus" and not Santa Claus.

The crib (presépio)

The crib (presépio) is indispensable the in the most traditional Portuguese Christmas (although this is of Italian origins): the crib with huge stones and moss, with their central figures, are everywhere in homes and public squares; Our Lady, St. Joseph and the Baby Jesus, the shepherds and their herds, and the Wise Men.

During the night of December 24 takes place a dinner which extends trough out the night with family and sometimes friends, we call it the "consoada", in this supper is served as a main dish, baked cod with potatoes, vegetables and is seasoned with olive oil and vinegar and (if you like the taste) chopped raw garlic and pepper on top! In the north of the country it is more usual to serve the roasted octopus instead of the cod.

After dinner and during the Eve is time to taste all the delicacies and sweets typical of the season, everything from “filhoses”, "azevias", rice pudding, french toast, “sonhos”, “bolo-rei”, scones and much more. Is served port wine (to adults), to help push down all this and anything else that you can swallow! (of curse you can drink whatever you like instead of wine)

The Christmas night extends beyond the opening of presents and when the youngest ones literally “fall sideways” the evening continues until dawn in family conversations between songs and the animation of the season!

A custom that is falling in to disuse, especially in big cities is the way to Midnight Mass (Missa do Galo). In some villages it is still customary to invite the priest responsible by it to go grab a snack at the house of the people who attended the Mass!

Another custom, this one almost forgotten, is to evoking the dead during the supper of the 24th, putting their place at the table, or even making up a doubling supper for them in another room.

On Christmas Day is eaten roasted meats and many different pastries, is a day of celebration.

The costumes, traditional or the gastronomic, change from north to south, but in the end is just another day of... Christmas!

During this month we will place, (as we have been doing) some goodies of the season!

Broas castelares

Portuguese typical Christmas sweet

To make this recipe you need:

- 1 orange peel

- 125gr of peeled and chopped almonds

- 150g of corn flour

- 75gr of wheat flour

- 3 eggs

- 400gr of sweet potatoes

- 50gr grated coconut

- 750 gr of white sugar

Boil the sweet potatoes. Once cooked mash until they are pureed. Add the sugar and bring the mixture to soft boil. Go stirring. Once it boils, add the almonds, coconut, orange peel and whole eggs. Wrap well. Then add the two flours, previously mixed. Remove from heat and let it cool. Once the dough has cooled, make small balls and give them the shape of bread. Place the broas, slightly apart from each other, in a tray greased with butter and sprinkled with flour or lined with parchment paper. Flatten them one at a time and brush each one with egg yolk.

Bake it on a previously heated oven to 220 degrees.

Et voilá! Your Broas Castelares are ready! Bonne Appetit!

In this time of year (autumn), a particular scent invades many of our streets and avenues of Portugal. A smell that we automatically associate with the imminent arrival of winter, and eventually with the closeness of the holiday season (Christmas)!

This scent is produced by the carts of the street vendors of roasted chestnuts (castanha assada), men and women who faithfully and for centuries and every year put themselves strategically on the street corners, or in the outputs of public transportation, invading the people that comes and goes with that familiar childhood memories! 

It is almost impossible to resist and not buy (at least sometimes) one of these paper cones, made of torn pages from old magazines and newspapers, were the vendors place mostly of the times about 12 chestnuts... that we buy for 2€ to 3€ the cone... a bit expensive for the quantity, is true but is worth every byte!

Is assumed that the chestnut is originally from Asia Minor, the Balkans and Caucasus, following the story of Western civilization for more than 100,000 years. Alongside with the pistachio, and the chestnut was an important contribution to the caloric prehistoric men who also used it in animal feeding.

The Greeks and the Romans put chestnuts inside amphorae filled with wild honey. This preserved the food and impregnated it with its taste. The Romans included the chestnut in their feasts. During the Middle Ages, the monasteries and abbeys, monks and nuns often used the nuts in their recipes. By this time, the chestnut was crushed, and became a major farinaceous in Europe.

Now a "delicacy" of the season, the chestnuts, in time gone by, constituted a nutritious food supplement, replacing the bread in his absence, when the rigors of winter and scarcity arrived.

This is the Hoopoe Bird (Poupa in Portuguese - Upupa epops in Latin).
Unmistakable, with its distinctive black and white pattern on the wings, and ocher head and neck. However, the most obvious morphological characteristic of this bird is its pronounced crest (hoop), trimmed by black tips, which, when raised, resembles a fan. Emits a vocalization extremely easy to identify, somewhat similar to the cuckoo.
Is a common species that can be observed from north to south. The best places to look for it are areas with forest habitat or a mixed of forest and agricultural.
But sometimes in rare occasions we can have a surprise of watching one of them in the city!