Portuguese Traditional Recipe
Last week, I went to Porto, Portugal for a three days trip. The city and food were amazing, I couldn’t wait to try the most popular food the city can offer.
We got to Bulha restaurant around 3:30pm, I rushed to open the menu. The menu has selected few dishes one of them was francesinha, unfortunately for me it contains ham, sausages, and wine. I ended up getting seafood dish, It was good. After I arrived home, the first thing I did is to make the hala twist of francesinha with what I can find on our local store. The result wasn’t disappointed, It turned out as delicious as my husband declared.
I added the Francesinha traditional recipe down below.
Halal Twist on the Francesinha traditional recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 slice of bread
- 1 thin veal steak
- 1 fresh halal sausage
- 1 egg
- 5 slices of squared Edam cheese (Replace it with swiss cheese)
- 20 g francesinha sauce
Francesinha sauce (serves 2 people)
- 1onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- 100 g meat (in my recipe I used 300g meat because I used 200g for for another dish)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1tbsp cornstarch
- 1tbsp tomato puree
- 1 litre of water
- 2 tsp of salt
- meat spice (optional)
Directions:
Frist, let’s start with Francesinha sauce:
- Cut the onions into thin fine chopped and add the olive oil, garlic, and the meat.
- Cook the meat until browned, add tomato puree, a bay leaf, meat spice, and stir continuously so that it absorbs all the flavour.
- Pour in the water and cook gently over medium heat for and hour then on low heat for another 30
- minutes until the sauce is ready
- Blend and sieve the sauce.
- In a small bowl add one tbsp of cornstarch, add a few tbsp of the sauce and mix until it is smooth. Add the mixture into the sauce and cook for extra 5-10 minutes.
Francesinha Recipe:
- The degree of cooking is base on your desire
- Cut the sausages in half and place them in a pan. Cook for 2 minutes on each side.
- On the pan cook the steak for about 2 minutes each side.
- Grill the slice of bread on a medium heat pan until it is golden.
- On another pan fry the egg
- Heat a pan over medium low heat.
- Add the oil/butter to the pan.
- After about 10 seconds, crack the egg.
- Hold the cracked eggs about 2 inches from the hot pan and break it open.
- Cook until the egg whites are fully set.
- Arrange the sandwich as this order, one slice of bread, half of the sausages, steak, the rest of the sausages, the second slice of bread, add the 5 swiss cheese around the sandwich, place the egg on the top, finally, pure some of the francesinha sauce on the top of the sandwich (the cheese melt this way).
The Traditional Francesinha recipe (from Portugal.com)
Ingredients:
- 2 slice of bread
- 1 thin veal steak
- 2 slices of ham
- 1 fresh sausage
- 1 fresh linguica sausage
- 1 egg
- 5 slices of squared Edam cheese
- 20 g francesinha sauce
Francesinha sauce (serves 4 people)
- 2 onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 200 g meat
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 dl olive oil
- 50 g cornstarch
- 50 g tomato puree
- 2 dl brandy
- 1 beer
- Pinch of salt
- Piri piri
Directions:
Frist, let’s start with Francesinha sauce:
- How you braise the meat is very important for this sauce.
- Cut the onions into thin half-moon slices and add the olive oil, garlic, bay leaves and the meat.
- Braise the meat and once it’s browned add the port wine, brandy and tomato puree, and stir continuously so that it absorbs all the flavour.
- Pour in the beer and cook gently over low heat for hours (1-2) hours
Until the sauce is ready
Blend and sieve the sauce.
Add some corn starch if you prefer the sauce to be a little thicker.
Piri piri should be added to taste. Generally served with a beer and chips. There are many versions of the francesinha, this is one of the most popular.
Francesinha Recipe
- The degree of cooking is base on your desire
- Cut the sausages in half and place them under the grill. When it is almost done place the slice of bread too.
- On the grill or on the pan cook the steak for about 1 minutes each side.
- On another pan fry the egg
- Heat a pan over medium low heat.
- Add the oil/butter to the pan.
- After about 10 seconds, crack the egg.
- Hold the cracked eggs about 2 inches from the hot pan and break it open.
- Cook until the egg whites are fully set.
- Arrange the sandwich as this order, one slice of bread, half of the sausages, steak, the rest of the sausages, the second slice of bread, add the 5 Edam cheese around the sandwich, place the egg on the top, finally, pure some of the francesinha sauce on the top of the sandwich (the cheese melt this way).
