Its use in the kitchen is very varied: from sweet to savory, creativity has no limit!

Usually brushed in shades of green, gray, and brown, by this time of the year, the landscape of Vila Nova de Foz Côa gains new hints of color due to the almond blossom. The municipality is known as the capital of the almond tree (there are more than 38 thousand hectares of fruit trees), whose flowering attracts many visitors and is responsible for fairs all over the region. Almond is one of the most popular nuts and has a handful of benefits, including the fact that it is an essential source of fiber, iron, calcium, vitamin E, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Its use in the kitchen is very varied: from sweet to savory, creativity has no limit!

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Highly appreciated for their taste and tenderness.

Cod tongues make up in flavor what they lack in beauty. Highly appreciated for their taste and tenderness and the ability to adapt to the creativity of chefs (and everyday cooks). And what can you do with them? Almost everything! The most common recipes are rice or risotto, bean stew, or boiled cod tongues with potatoes, chickpeas, eggs, and vegetables.

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It is highly moisturizing, rich in calcium, phosphorus, and iron and has a mild and neutral flavor.

Versatile and low-calorie make courgette a vegetable of choice in many homes and restaurant kitchens. It is highly moisturizing, rich in calcium, phosphorus, and iron and has a mild and neutral flavor. When it comes to cooking, imagination is the limit, as from salads, soups, main courses, and even desserts, it lends itself to everything! Two essential tips when choosing courgettes in the market: prefer medium-sized and heavier ones, which tend to be tastier, and avoid those with tough skin, which is a sign that they are very ripe and have harder seeds.

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Its presence in Portuguese waters is abundant, and the species does not have, to date, any restriction for capture.

Grilled, fried, or as the protagonist of a “feijoada“ (bean stew); here are the three most common ways to eat cuttlefish in Portugal. An inhabitant of the seabed, the mollusk can measure up to 50 centimeters and live to a maximum depth of 200 meters. During the day, it remains buried in sandy bottoms and only becomes active at dusk. Despite its harmless appearance, it is a cunning and efficient predator. Its presence in Portuguese waters is abundant, and the species does not have, to date, any restriction for capture.

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Characterized by its serpentiform body, cylindrical in the front and long in the rear, and narrower in the tail area, eels have a wide head with tubed-shaped nasal orifices and small rounded eyes.

The Óbidos lagoon is the breeding ground for a series of fish such as sea bass or sole, hardshell mollusks, such as clams and cockles, and mollusks such as these magnificent eels, our featured product this week. Characterized by its serpentiform body, cylindrical in the front and long in the rear, and narrower in the tail area, eels have a wide head with tubed-shaped nasal orifices and small rounded eyes. The animal goes through different phases in its life - being the yellow phase, the one with most significant growth - and can be found all over the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and along the coast of Africa. Fried eels and eel stew are two of the very typical dishes made with eels.

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The species can be found all over the Portuguese coast and islands.

Escolar, white tuna, walu fish. A fish with many names! The species can be found all over the Portuguese coast and islands. It has dark violet color when just captured, which color turns reddish-brown over time. It can reach a total length of up to about 2 meters.

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The month of May is when we see many good things back on the market stalls: radishes, strawberries, ... and if the first thing that came to your mind were the Fundão cherries, you're one of us!

At The Art of Tasting Portugal, we know the best products by heart. They say that cherries are like conversations. As a rule, they come in pairs - which proves the veracity of this proverb. Red and fleshy, they are an explosion of flavour that we cannot dissociate from the arrival of warm weather or from the beautiful fields of blossoming cherry trees that motivate so many walks at this time of the year. Rich in anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory, they are excellent from the nutritional point of view, perfect for sweet and savoury flavours.

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Its meat is succulent and lends itself to be cooked in a thousand and one ways and also used in preserves.

Mackerel is a versatile and affordable fish very abundant in Portuguese waters. With an elongated body and blue or greenish skin with zigzags that resemble a zebra, it feeds on small fish, crustaceans and plankton. Its meat is succulent and lends itself to be cooked in a thousand and one ways and also used in preserves.

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It is twice as delicious as it is ugly: you can count on our gourmand word for that!

Monkfish is perhaps one of the ugliest fishes you can find at the market, but it is also one of the most nutritious, tasty and versatile. A bottom feeder fish, it is a cunning hunter that uses a kind of antenna, part of its skeleton, as bait to attract prey directly to its mouth. It is found all along the coast and is one of the most gastronomic fishes in the Portuguese sea. Two curiosities: for a long time, monkfish pancreas was one of the first sources of processed insulin, which was fundamental to treat type 2 diabetes; "sea demon" is one of its many nicknames, which is particularly interesting on Halloween week!

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Peas have been grown for thousands of years.

At the market stalls they present themselves in beautiful pods loaded with peas ready to go to the pot. When choosing, prefer the pods that are not broken and the greener and lush ones without dark spots. Peas have been grown for thousands of years. Its plant, the pea plant, originates in Southern and Central Europe, and its nutritional benefits are significant. Its unique flavor and texture make it very versatile. Peas can be consumed in the pod or in grains and can be used both as a side dish or as the key ingredient in a recipe. And is the ritual of peeling peas part of your childhood memories? It sure is part of ours!

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