With almost 1,800 km of coastline, it's no wonder that fish and seafood play a major role in Portuguese cuisine. Find out which fish dishes and specialities you should not miss in the following article.
Fresh fish in the Algarve ( Photo: Falktext )
Maritime delicacies in Portugal
It's early morning and low tide on the Algarve beach. In a camouflage-coloured wetsuit, a man gets out of his car with fins, an orange buoy, a net and a harpoon. Later, a fishing boat passes near the shore. A long channel looms behind its stern. It has made a circuit around the small light buoy. Every ten seconds to a minute, a part of the diver comes out of the water.
We would like to invite you to dive in together, into the culture of the Portuguese, which is connected to the ocean. Are you curious to see what's on the table in Mediterranean fish cuisine?
The Portuguese cannot do without the sea
The Atlantic and Algarve regions have a great attraction for the people of Portugal. The metropolitan region of Lisbon alone has 2.8 million inhabitants, including the Setúbal peninsula. The rest of the ten most populous cities are located entirely on or near the sea: Amadora, Braga, Coimbra, Funchal (on Madeira), Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." (Confucius)
The Portuguese like to eat fish a lot, even more than meat. Preparing fish, for example barbecuing it with family and friends, has great social importance in Portugal. Most people can afford them, the inexpensive sardines, mackerel and cod - given their purchasing power, which is on average about half that of Germany.
The demand for fish in Portugal is greater than what the local fishermen bring ashore. So a lot of fish is imported into the country by the sea. Especially cod, the fish for the Portuguese national dish bacalhau, comes from abroad: from Norway and Newfoundland. Atlantic salmon also comes from Scandinavia.
In Sagres' fishing port you will find the richest fish market in Portugal. Up to 200 different species of fish can be found off Portugal. Many of them are also on the table here in Germany. The Portuguese bake, grill, fry, boil or marinate fish.
The most popular sea fish in Portugal
The palette of sea fish ranges from bonito, a smaller, related form of tuna, to two-banded sea bream (safia) and white seabream (sargo). The rich selection continues with dorado (dourada), cod (bacalhau) and mackerel (carapau). The latter is easily caught by fishermen from a lighted boat on warm evenings.
The sardine (sardinha) plays a leading role among the fish dishes. Not to be forgotten are the anchovy (anchova), the sole (linguado), which belongs to the flat fish, and the turbot (pregado) as well as sea bass (robalo).
The eagle fish, which can weigh up to 75 kilograms in the wild, is often found in fish halls as sliced "corvina a posta". It is low in fat. That's why "corvina" is tasty grilled briefly or steamed with juicy vegetables.
The nature of the dorado is to be male first in its life, up to a size of 30 centimetres and two years of age. After that, it transforms into a female. In the case of a two-banded bream, it is the other way round: they all grow up as females and become males after one to two years of age. The black scabbardfish (espada) is also special: caught with lines one and a half kilometres long off Madeira and the Portuguese mainland, it was not scientifically identified until 1839.
The blue marlin (marlin azul), which belongs to the spearfish family, is the fish immortalised by Hemingway in "The Old Man and the Sea". The writer often went big game fishing. This is the name given to hunting the big ones among the predatory fish that inhabit the open sea. Tuna (tuna) and swordfish (espadarte) are also among them. In 2008, fisherman Hugo Silva caught a blue marlin weighing 418 kilograms off Sesimbra, south of Lisbon, after a fight that lasted six and a half hours. The hot spots of big game fishing are off Madeira and the Azores.
Fish dishes in Portuguese
On the menu of a "marisqueira", a fish restaurant, the following dishes will awaken your desire to eat:
Bolinhos de bacalhau are oval dumplings made of bacalhau, mashed potatoes and onions. They belong to the "petiscos", the starters.
Arroz de marisco;belongs to the main courses, the "pratos principales". Rice with seafood is served here. In northern Portugal, you can be lucky enough to get the meal with lamprey. This animal, elongated like an eel, is not a fish. And the sea lamprey lives not only in the sea, but also in rivers. It feeds on cod, salmon and mackerel. It is classified as a jawless vertebrate. The Portuguese find lamprey with rice (arroz de lampreia) very tasty.
Bacalhau à Brás is a pan-fried stockfish dish with chopped potatoes, onions, garlic with egg and olives.
Bife de atum grelhado is a grilled tuna steak.
Caldeirada de peixe is a fish stew with seafood, herbs and tomatoes.
Cataplana is the name of a rich meal from the copper pan with seafood, meat, potatoes, peppers and onions.
Carapaus alimados are cooked mackerel served in a marinade of olive oil, vinegar, onions and garlic.
Grelhada mista de peixe is a mixed grill platter of fish.
Raia frita com arroz de espinafres is fried skate served with rice and spinach.
Tortilha de Bacalhau is an oven-baked stockfish tortilla with peppers.
Stockfish - Bacalhau ( Photo: Falktext )
The faithful friend of the Portuguese: Stockfish - Bacalhau
This name for Portugal's national dish is proverbial. Stockfish is originally what the name suggests: a fish hung on sticks or poles to dry. Cod, or young cod, Mediterranean ling (maruca), haddock (arinca) or saithe (escamudo) are added. Clipper fish (bacalhau seco) is heavily salted stockfish.
Before cooking, stockfish and rockfish are soaked in water for up to three days and changed several times. Later, during cooking, the strong fishy smell disappears. On the plate, the bacalhau is soft and juicy. The culture of preserving originally comes from 8th century Norway.
The Portuguese are great at preparing stockfish. Although, some also eat it raw: seven kilograms per person per year is the average consumption in Portugal of dried bacalhau and 15 kilos in stockfish dishes.
The tuna catch in Portugal
Local fishermen in the Algarve have been catching tuna for 2,000 years: bluefin tuna. Named after its red meat, the edible fish is also known as bluefin tuna. It moves up to 80 kilometres per hour. Although a fish, the bluefin tuna is a warm-blooded animal: with a body temperature of 27 °C it is almost constant.
Until 1972, up to 150 fishing families lived in the area of today's Ria Formosa Nature Park: always during the tuna season. This lasted from March to September. The tuna then migrate from the Atlantic Ocean, past the Strait of Gibraltar, to the western Mediterranean Sea to breed.
The Atlantic tuna stock declined dangerously, and the EU imposed a fishing ban in a 200-kilometre zone in the Atlantic. In 1972, the last fishermen in the mouth of the Gilão River dismantled their nets. They had been kilometres long and fixed to the seabed.
Fresh tuna at the fish counter ( Photo: Falktext )
Today, 80 percent of the bluefin tuna catch is eaten by the Japanese, for example as sashimi or sushi. With 2.7 million euros from its advertising budget, a Tokyo restaurant chain bought a 278-kilogram bluefin tuna from the region in January 2019.
In the Azores, fishermen traditionally catch tuna with fishing lines from boats. The other side of the coin was that this gentle way of fishing has not been able to keep up with industrial tuna fishing on the world's oceans since the 1970s. On the Azores island of São Jorge, the owners of the tuna factory in Santa Catarina therefore now rely on manual labour and product innovations with herbs and sweet potatoes. Supported by EU subsidies, they may thus find a niche in the local Portuguese market.
Freshwater fish in Portugal's fish cuisine
With its lakes, reservoirs and rivers, the Iberian country has a rich variety of tasty freshwater fish: Eel (enguia), Barbel (barbo), Perch (perca), Iberian Caesling (boga) and Trout Perch (achigâ). On the menu you will find pike (lucio), carp (carpa), salmon (salmâo) and rainbow trout (truta arco iris). Catfish (peixe gato) and pikeperch (lucioperca) are also native to the Mediterranean country.
How to recognise fresh fish
If fish and seafood smell only slightly of fish and a little of the sea, they are fresh. Only stockfish may smell stronger. Fresh fish have shiny scales. Their eyes are clear and protrude slightly. The gills glow red. Fillets should be elastic and firm, shiny and neutral-smelling.
The eyes and body of a fresh octopus are shiny. If you buy it frozen, it should have the same characteristics as unfrozen pulpo after thawing. Mussels are bought with their shells closed.
How do the Portuguese get their seafood?
The mussel collectors stake out their terrain in lagoons and at the mouths of rivers with pieces of wood. They recognise clams (amêijoas) - the individualists among the mussels - by the three-millimetre air holes in the bottom: two at intervals of two centimetres. They pick up the sea creatures with bucket and quiver, hoe, and pocket knife. The working time of the "mariscadores" changes by one hour from day to day, due to the tides.
When they have finished catching, they take their prey to the wholesaler. With a delivery note bearing the name of the mussel collector, the variety and origin, the fresh delicacies travel on to a purification plant. In such a facility, in Olhão, the employees clean them with UV light or ozone and give them in one-kilo bags to the retail trade, for example to the fish market in Quarteira.
Prawns and shrimps in the fish market of Quarteira in the Algarve ( Photo: Falktext )
Freshly caught seafood on the table
Portugal's marisqueiras invite you to try tasty "frutos do mar":
Açorda de camarão is the name of a down-to-earth bread soup with scampi for take-off.
Amêijoas à Bulhão Pato are mussels served as a snack, cooked in a broth of white wine, olive oil, coriander and garlic.
Main courses include:
Arroz de tamboril, which is a rice stew with scampi and monkfish.
Batata-doce com perceves is sweet potatoes with barnacles. Detached from protruding boulders, this exquisite seafood belongs to the crustaceans, despite its name.
Ostras grelhadas present themselves as grilled oysters.
Polvo em azeite is octopus, which you can try as a cold starter, with olive oil and vinegar, onions and parsley, or fried as polvo à lagareiro with jacket potatoes.
Santola recheada comes as a stuffed sea spider, with cucumber, egg, breadcrumbs and strong sauces to emphasise its origins from the sea.
"Not everything that goes into the net is fish."
("Nem tudo que vem àrede é peixe", Portuguese proverb)
On the Algarve beach, a fishing line with a hook lies next to the scallop, as if lost. The diver with the harpoon rose from the water with a full net. His gear indicated his hunt for octopus and small fish.
In 2017, bluefin tuna stocks recovered. The fishing quotas could be moderately expanded. Thus, in theory, the cutter fishermen have time from 26 May to 24 June. In practice, it ends around the beginning of June - for the good of the tuna stock.
