For the cheese lovers!

This one goes out to the cheese lovers like me - 3 cheeses delight!

This dish makes a great starter and you better try it only you have guests, because it´s just too sinful!  I didn´t personally prepare this dish, a friend of mine did for a gathering we had just recently.

All you need is:

- 1 big round bread
- 3 packets of 3 different types of shredded cheese (for example, cheddar, Parmesan...)
- 1 package of cream
- 3 table spoons of mayo
- more or less 100 gr of chouriço or bacon or ham

Open a sort of a round cap on the top part of the bread and remove the crumb from inside. Keep the crumb. Then mix all the ingredients and put that inside the bread and pop it into the oven at 180º. When the cheese starts to melt, put the bread crumbs and cap into the oven too to toast. The all process takes about 20 minutes.

Doesn´t look delicious?

Codfish Cakes

I´m back with a delicious traditional Portuguese recipe: codfish cakes!

Last weekend there was a picnic organized by Portuguese parents living in Singapore to celebrate Children´s Day. Obviously, this was a totally Portuguese flavored picnic and each parent brought along some traditional dishes. Every single one was delicious and I only regret not taking pictures... there was a little bit of everything: egg tart, tuna salad, rissões, meat bread, chouriço, cheeses or orange cake.

Believe or not, I didn´t know 90% of the people at the picnic, so this was not only an excellent occasion to show off our food, but also too meet other Portuguese people.

For this gathering, my husband made bread (already know as The Baker) and I made codfish cakes for the first time in my life. This very traditional delicacy always reminds me of my grandmother, always! She wasn´t particularly gifted in the kitchen, but if there was something she was really good, this was it! And I still have printed in my mind what she would always say about other people´s codfish cakes: "Not enough codfish!"

And here´s my recipe, with a good portion of codfish. The recipe is very simple, but it might take about 1h to prepare as it evolves different steps.

Ingredients
700 gr codfish (after soaked)
600 - 700 gr potatoes
4 eggs
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
pepper
parsely
oil (to fry)

1 - First step is to cook the potatoes in water with a bit of salt for about 30 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the water and mashed them.

2 - Cook the codfish in water only for about 10 minutes, remove the bones and skin and shred it. I normally never add salt to the cod, even after soaked the cod is still salty. 

3 - Chop the onion and the garlic and let it brown with the olive oil. Then add the codfish, the mashed potatoes and all the seasoning. Mix and add the eggs until you get an homogeneous mash.

4- Last step is to fry. Use abundant oil and with 2 spoons shape the codfish cakes. Let them fry until they get brown.

Done! Here are the codfish cakes ready to go for the picnic. Not only they look beautiful, they were delicious. The proof is that I didn´t bring any cakes back home!

Once, I tried this recipe with regular fish just to see if it works, and it does. The difference is that you might need to cut down the number of eggs and potatoes, so that the cakes don´t become too mushy. I need to give this experiment another try.

Another thing about this dish is that you can freeze the cakes before frying them.

Bom apetite!