I have just been away for a couple of weeks – a well-timed break to coincide with a quieter period on the farm – and have spent most of it thinking about, eating or cooking fish. The Portuguese are dedicated fish-lovers and I was determined to take full advantage of the incredible array of fish on offer.
The fish counter at our local supermarket had to be seen to be believed. Banks of crushed ice housed trays of seafood of all different shapes and sizes – at a glance, there were various flatfish, bass, bream, prawns, squid, eel, rays, monkfish, crab, lobster, octopus, sardines, mackerel – my eyes were on stalks and I couldn’t wait to get some home and start cooking. The fish we ate the most was gilt-head bream. The lady at the fishmonger scaled and gutted them for me and we simply opened them up and put them on the BBQ.
Here are just a few photographs of my two week fish extravaganza.
Choosing fish in a restaurant
Prawns in garlic butter – remove the heads and eat the rest!
Sardines waiting to go on the BBQ
Squid with lemon & parsley
Squid, monkfish & chorizo kebabs for the BBQ
These were halved and grilled with herbs & butter
Seafood cataplana – an Algarvian staple
The cataplana pot
And something that got us laughing at a local restaurant…not so great presentation of a prawn cocktail. Thankfully, they weren’t expecting us to drink the contents of the glass.
Those prawns look yummy! I love the prawn cocktail presentation – very retro!
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