Lisboner

“I've got a lisboner- woah ohh ohh” cries Adrien as he whizzes through the roads of the Algarve. It's not true, his trousers were just uncomfortably tight from munching too much Baccalau. I should probably explain to you that we just got back from a week in Portugal visiting the Algarve and Lisboner (as my BF believed the capital was called. Snigger- hence the crude reference)

Baccalau, I should probably explain is Cod fish and they bloody love it out there. A ceramic painting man with an outstanding beard told us “the french have 365 types of cheese, one for every day of the year, and we have 365 different ways of cooking Baccalau.” And yes it was good- Everyone likes a bit of grilled fish and that’s what the Portuguese do best. But for me, still being ever so slightly fishaphobic, I couldn’t handle Adrien’s blood and guts approach such as, “whoops I just ate an eye!” and “oooo look this fish is pregnant, yum free spawn!”

Hence my favourite being the chicken piri-piri or as Adrien called it the chicken-chicken piri, a spicy crispy chicken dish made from super-hot chillies. It’s delicious, but too spicy for the delicate palate of my namby-pamby French companion who is capable of ingesting fish organs but can’t even look at a chicken korma without sweating.

Don’t you hate it when you’re in a restaurant and the thing the other person orders is better than yours? Food envy, well it kept happening to me. Adrien and his Argentinian steak, Adrien and his perfectly cooked crispy rounds of calamari. Oh well at least we kept ordering the same soup. The Portuguese seem to love their “sopa” with every meal, which I found to be surprising for a hot country. In an attempt to avoid food envy, we spent some evenings cooking in our holiday apartment. Portugal is a lot cheaper than France and England so this allowed me to splash out on two huge, plump chicken breasts for just a couple of euros. I cooked these up with some pan fried chorizo and a Porto sauce.

Being the cheese fiend that I am, I had to hunt out some Portuguese cheese. Eventually we found ourselves a fantastic market in the town of Loule in the Algarve and would you believe it the Portuguese know how to make cheese. Ok there may not have been the same variety as in France but we loved the delicious creamy rounds of sheep and cows cheese coated in a waxy rind. Our favourite was “quejo ovelha”.

And so a week of indulging ourselves ended and we scooted off into the Portuguese sunset past the orange groves with a ring of chorizo tucked under my arm. 

Chorizo "Extra-Extra!"