Bica Cheese

Bica (de queijo) is a raw farmhouse gourmet delicious cheese made from a blend of cow, goat, and sheep's milk. Bica has a distinctive yet mild, buttery flavor and a satiny texture. Like most portuguese cheeses, Bica has a slightly salty flavor because its milk comes from animals that graze on land that sits by the sea. Enjoy it with a medium-bodied red wine before the meal, or with a glass of Port for dessert.

"Bica de Queijo" loosely translated means "bag of cheese". And that is exactly what this cheese looks like. When the curd is fresh, it is placed in a cheese cloth and twisted up into a "bag". As the cheese firms up, the cloth is removed, but its imprint remains, giving rise to its name.

Bica de Queijo is produced in Póvoa de Lanhoso in Minho region (north of Portugal). This is considered the capital of Filigrana, the traditional Portuguese 19,2K gold jewellery. In Póvoa do Lanhoso you may visit Museu do Ouro de Travassos (gold museum).

Toledo Cheese

This is a semi hard consistency cheese made from a blend of cow, sheep and goat's milk. The rind is rubbed in paprika, creating a colorful rustic appearance and an ever-so-slight peppery edge. The cheese itself is mild with a creamy consistency, sweet and grassy and has a full finish.

It is produced in Torres Vedras in the Estremadura region (north of Lisbon), know for it's traditional Carnival and coast line like Santa Cruz spot.

Tomar Cheese

From the name of a small town 150 km northeast of Lisbon, known for its gastronomic specialties and well-known to tourists for its famous Manueline-style window in the Templar convent and Festa dos tabuleiros.

With a resemblance to Rabaçal cheese, Tomar is the smallest of Portuguese cheeses. It weighs barely 50-70 g, can be eaten fresh or aged, and is semi-soft. In Portugal it is known as "Queijinho de Tomar".

São Jorge Cheese (DOP)

This wonderful cheese comes to us from the volcanic island of the same name in Portugal's Azores archipelago. Littered with giant craters, the island is also home to vast, lush, natural green pastures. When colonized by the Flemish in the 15th century, cheese production was introduced to the island, with cows brought over from the mainland.

São Jorge is the largest of Portuguese cheeses. It weighs from 8 up to 12 kg and it’s still made in the traditional farmhouse way from unpasteurized cow's milk. The maturation process is 1 - 3 months long and the result is a semi-firm to firm cheese with a yellowish color and small “eyes” reminiscent of fine English cheddar. The rind is hard, with a smooth surface and a dark yellow color, sometimes with chestnut-colored spots and coated with paraffin.

The aroma is strong, with a flavor both mild and bitter, becoming slightly spiced as it ages. São Jorge is incredibly versatile, lending its tangy, slightly peppery undertones well to sauces and being equally delicious served cubed into a salad or chunked and eaten with a crusty baguette.

Traditional Sea Salt

Known in Portugal as Flor de Sal, the most sophisticated and refined of all salts is a traditional sea salt, hand-harvested, collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans (salinas). Daily harvested directly from the ocean, Flor de Sal is a prized culinary ingredient that undergoes no industrialized processing prior to being packaged.

Portuguese salt workers used to refer to Flor de Sal as 'salt cream' as it is collected from the saltpan surface as cream is from the milk. This top layer of salt produces the finest and most mineral-rich crystals (such as magnesium, iron and calcium), which are particularly good for your health.

Flor de Sal in modern gastronomy

This delicate marine salt know in culinary circles as fleur de sel is one of the most highly prized ingredients in kitchens and restaurants throughout the world, and one of the absolute finest condiments. Due to it’s special flavour and richness in oligoelements and micronutrients it’s broadly used by connoisseurs, gourmets and chefs de cosine.

Just so you are aware, this is a wet sea salt not intended to be put in a regular salt grinder nor used during the cooking process. It is usually used as is, as the grain size is not that large.

Flor de Sal is used to season dishes prior to serving as the final touch in meal preparation, transforming the natural flavours into a more intense, pleasant and distinguished taste. Used solely as a finishing salt, applied by hand, delicately rubbing between thumb and forefinger, or by sprinkling lightly from a spoon.

Flor de Sal from the Algarve

Salt pans within Ria Formosa natural reserve (Olhão)

Traditional Sea Salt from the Algarve has a history going back to the Roman era, some 2,000 years ago, and the same ancient methods and simple equipment are still used today.

The salt is harvested in June, July and August, depending on the weather, using time-honoured methods. In May the producers begin to flood the basins with seawater at high tide. The saltpans are flooded until the water level reaches 40-50cm over a period of 4-5 days, with water added each day at high tide. It then takes 3-4 days for the water to evaporate in the sun, until approximately 20cm of sea salt remains, and it generally takes 2 weeks to harvest all the sea salt, using wooden rakes.

This sea salt has a very clear and whitish colour, but is totally unrefined. The reason for this is that the clay in the area is very hard and light in colour, so the salt does not take on the earthy grey colour that, say, Guerande salts do. The salt has a moisture content of 8%, and a sodium chloride content of around 96%, which is lower than that of table salt, leaving room for other essential minerals, such as calcium and magnesium.

Tradition and Quality

These traditional sea salts are comparable to handcrafted foods, and are very labour intensive. They are quite different to conventional sea salts, which are often harvested by tractors, washed in seawater, and dried at high temperatures. Salt farmers in Portugal adhere to quality standards for certified organic produce and consequently have been awarded the "Slow Food Award for the Defense of Biodiversity".

Web references & Interesting links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur_de_sel
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flor_de_Sal
http://www.saltworks.us/salt_info/si_gourmet_reference.asp#FleurDeSel
http://www.necton.pt/en/offer.html
http://www.terrasdesal.com/salinfo.php
http://www.flordesal.net/index.htm
http://www.observatoriodoalgarve.com/cna/noticias_ver.asp?noticia=18161

This blog is for people who ...

pursuits unique flavours and quality products from Portugal… and are tired of generic goods.