Chloe

I would say that all chestnuts should be slit/have a a cross cut before cooking, but most particularly roast chestnuts, otherwise they are likely to explode! The Portuguese boil chestnuts with fennel - the only thing that fennel is used for and they roast them with lots of rock salt. On 11th November, St Martin's Day, schools around the country roast chestnuts over a fire in the old-fashioned way and kids come home from school all sooty, full of chestnuts and with extra ones in a card bag they have made at school. Adults accompany the chestnuts with new wine (or old wine, or "jeropiga" etc etc). My birthday - a very nicely chosen date! Whole unpeeled chestnuts can also be frozen successfully, if you don't have time to prepare them and don't want the beasties to get to them before you do. Or if you want good roast chestnuts later on in the season. North Portugal is real chestnut country. The early ones are ripening now, but the extra good ones on my "farm" weren't quite ripe when I checked them last Sunday - have to go there again in the next few days. Chloe North Portugal

Make a Portuguese cake or dessert? Plenty of more-than-10-egg recipes around. Toucinho do Ceu 650g sugar 16 egg yolks 11 egg whites pinch ground cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 500g ground almonds 4 tbsp flour Beat eggs and and spices until light and airy, add almonds and flour and mix very well. Bake in a medium oven in a well buttered and floured tin. Cut into slices when cold and dip the slices in a light sugar syrup and then sugar and cinnamon. Chloe North Portugal

Victor wrote Don't they eat very small land snails with a pin in Andalucia at least? My husband had them in Sevilla. In Portugal, all snails are the very small eat-with-a-pin variety, and at the moment are very common. Some company (or companies) has started to sell them frozen, already cooked and flavoured, and I have also seen net bags of plain snails at supermarkets. There is a mushroom feira gastronomica in Galicia that I always mean to go to ... Chloe Ponte de Lima Portugal

I should have said "... scanned images from a relatively recently published book" which I wouldn't really be too happy about posting openly. Or would it be acceptable if I gave the publication details? Chloe Ponte de Lima

Obviously at home it's easier to make pastéis de Belém with a simple pastry, but I would just like to describe how they are traditionally made. The pastry used is puff pastry, but the technique for lining the moulds is curious. The whole sheet of pastry is rolled up and then sliced on the round. The little disks (like slices of swiss roll) are then gently pressed into each mould so that the final effect on the cooked pastry shows both the layers of the puff pastry and the spiral of the slices. I can't find any pictures on the internet, but I can send scanned images to anybody who PMs me! Chloe Ponte de Lima

Today I am determined to pick enough lemons to make limoncello! The lemons on my "farm" are wonderful big lumpy things - heaven knows what variety. What I am wondering is what to do with all those mangled lemons I'm going to be left with. Any inspirational ideas? Chloe rainy North Portugal

I've never had a caipirinha outside Portugal or Brazil, but some of the recipes I have seen on the internet seem to have a distinct lack of sugar, unless some teaspoons are larger than other teaspoons. Which might explain Chef Shogun's sourness. I like rather a lot of sugar in my caipirinhas! And the peel is half the point of a caipirinha! My children like "special" caipirinhas, with seven-up instead of cachaça! Chloe North Portugal

Wonderful description. Graciñas, Victor! I wonder how many worlds/cylinders I have here, living in Portugal, only an hour or so's drive from San Xenxo and Lapamán :biggrin: Chloe Ponte de Lima

Suckling pig with macaroni cheese? Oh heavens!!! Chloe Ponte de Lima Portugal - where suckling pig is *not* served with macaroni cheese ...

I skimmed through it in Vitoria in April, tempted by my Basque friend's comments that Subijana was the "big chef" for whom he had most respect as a general all round chef/educator etc. I was tempted, but the price (which isn't that high, I don't think) didn't quite match my tender budget at the time. On the Portuguese side, I am happy to start with Culinária Portuguesa by Olleboma (António Maria de Oliveira Bello) and, for essays, José Quitério's two books Livro de Bem Comer and Histórias e Curiosidades Gastronómicas. Chloe Ponte de Lima

Percebes without the edible part? Chloe Ponte de Lima

Salada de bacalhau cru, commonly known by the very crude name of punhetas de bacalhau. Chloe Ponte de Lima

I have Elisabeth Ayrton's English Provincial Cooking (available 2nd hand from amazon.co.uk), which has a pleasing selection of varied, traditional English dishes, including a few foreign influences. And plenty of background information and history. Chloe Portugal

What is "paella seasoning"? Personally, I never heard about it. There's curcuma as a coloring agent for those poor avaricious souls who prefer to save a penny on real saffron. But no seasoning, AFAIK. I might be quite mistaken, but in the cheaper sort of restaurant, paella/fideo type dishes often seem to have a generic flavour that is not just saffron and that makes these dishes taste exactly the same whatever the restaurant and whatever the ingredients in the paella/fideo. I'd be very happy to be corrected if I've got the wrong impression! But then again the reliability of my opinion might be reflected in the fact that I forgot to mention pimentón in my previous post Cinnamon in some Catalan dishes, cinnamon and nutmeg in sweets, ... Back on the original subject, I would agree with Miguel that there is surprisingly little cross-border culinary influence. As a general rule, in my little corner of the Peninsula the Spaniards come south for salt cod and the Portuguese go north mainly for shellfish. Shops here sell a lot of Spanish food products, but the only ones I can think of that are distinctly Spanish are pimientos de Padrón, which are often grown in Portugal, and "criolo" sausages (Argentinian/Galician influence??). As an aside, we also have a Spanish butcher (well, Galician, Talho dos Galegos) in town where the beef is much better than Portuguese beef. Chloe Ponte de Lima

I thought your references to the (true or imagined) presence of spices in Spanish food were curious. Apart from saffron and the unfortunately ubiquitous "paella seasoning", I wouldn't have associated spices with Spanish food, although I would accept that the Portuguese can have an obsession with the supposed spiciness of foreign food. Then again it is possible that my opinion is influenced by the fact that I live in an area of Portugal were spices (coriander, cumin and cloves) are used on a regular basis in rojões, sarrabulho etc (If I think about it, I can't recall what corinader seed is used in, but powdered coriander is easy to find, so it must be used in something ...). Chloe (who watched the game surrounded by English supporters and felt wierdly un-English, had supper with a Dane and a Swiss and will be going to a match tomorrow with 1 Dane, 1 Swiss, 1 Bulgarian and 2 Portuguese) (also pleasantly engaged by the sight of an enormous table of Latvians in Ponte de Lima ...)

Butifarra sausage with morels stew, Leg bone fleshy part of Valle del Esla's veal, Calocybe gambosa risotto or octopus salad. Calocybe gambosa being St. George's mushrooms in English, just in case somebody thinks they are prawns Chloe Ponte de Lima

Me too, more or less. There are some things I avoid (e.g. milk to drink and milky coffee) but if I don't really enjoy eating something, I find it very difficult to say that it is icky or yucky or makes me gag etc etc In fact I generally find people saying that food is icky/yucky/gaggy to be much more icky/yucky/gaggy than food itself! Chloe North Portugal

Miguel Do your prices refer to restaurants, shops, wholesale??? Chloe Ponte de Lima

Percebes were 40-something euros in the Corte Inglés in Vigo the other week, and 20-something in my "local" cheap-ish supermarket - though I didn't notice the origins of those. And €18 for a reasonable dish of percebes at a restaurant in Baiona last weekend. Chloë Ponte de Lima Ed: just to show that I was talking about the price of goose barnacles, not elvers!

And for more modest choices, what about Anaya? I have the big Mapas y carreteras with city/town guides and now the Guía Viva - Comer y Dormir en España (Viaja mejor, paga menos). Chloe about to go leave my local paradise (according to Miguel) to spend a few days in the restaurant paradise of Euskadi, but with a not particularly paradisiacal purse!

Make that Daimús! Chloe Ponte de Lima

And all of you have almost got me pining for the Algarve!! Chloe Ponte de Lima inveterate northerner who was in the Algarve once, 19 years ago ...

Thank you all very much for your suggestions. The gentlemen ended up having a whole afternoon in Manchester. The last I heard from them they were outside Yang Sing, so it sounds like they are on the right track! And may the best team on the night win (that's not what I really think, is it ...?) abraço Chloe north Portugal

The last two whole salt cods I bought had them But when I've mentioned such things to people here nobody recalls ever having seen them. Either I've had bad luck, or they had never noticed them. But that is difficult to believe, because they were perfectly visible in the flesh, particularly near the skin. I'll buy a whole salt cod this week, to see if I am rid of the jinx! (salt cod rice anybody? ) Chloe north Portugal

Can anyone recommend anywhere to eat near Old Trafford pre-match on Tuesday? My husband will be there with his father for the Porto match. And in general what could they do for a few hours that afternoon not too far from the stadium? Thanks Chloe north Portugal