Guincho salad

There is this perfect little café which looks over my favourite beach, Guincho. We go there so many times, because there is nothing better than drinking a coffee, eating a croissant while you're watching the ocean.

I'm on a school break now, so I have time to relax and just enjoy living in Portugal and being with my family. And so the other day I went to this café with my family and I decided to show you guys how amazing this place is.

There is a salad which I love to order, because it is unique, tasty and also filling. I had this many times and the last time I went I wrote down all the ingredients I tasted, so I could try to recreate at home. The next day I made this salad and I think it turned out pretty great.

With this recipe I'm only going to give you the ingredients and how to make it, because I feel like with salad recipes you don't exactly need the measurements, because all depends on you're taste. 

The café

The salad you can order in the café

My recreation

SALAD INGREDIENTS: 

chicken breast
curry
salad mix
coriander
couscous
apple

FOR THE DRESSING:
olive oil
cinnamon
curry
lemon

Season the chicken with salt and pepper and fry it in a pan with some oil and curry. Add your salad mix, peeled and sliced apple, couscous (which you've cooked according to the instructions on the box), coriander and the fried curry chicken into a bowl. For the dressing mix the olive oil, salt, pepper, curry, cinnamon and some lemon juice in a glass and drizzle it on the salad. The good thing about salads is that if you forget something you can always add it later. 

Enjoy!

I had so much fun making this post for you guys, so I hope you like it! 

See you next week :) 

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Pastel de Natas

Pastel de Natas is known as a Portugues speciality which is mentioned in every guide book as a must try. I personally love them and I've eaten them so many times. To taste the real ones you must go to Belém in Lisbon and find a shop/cafe called, Pastéis de Belém. A few weeks ago we went there with my family and the "pastel"s were so tasty that I decided to give it a try at home. To make my life easier I used puff pastry which I bought in the store. I started making them and I found out that it is not as easy as it may seem. I think mine turned out pretty good for the first try, but I will improve my recipe to perfection.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pack of puff pastry
300ml cream
3 tablespoon of flour
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar  (but if you like it sweeter you can add more)

cinnamon

For the top: 

powdered sugar

cinnamon

(Also you will need a blow torch to burn the tops)

Take 1/4 of the cream and the flour and stir until smooth. Then pour the rest of the cream, sugar and some cinnamon (to your taste) in a bowl and place it on medium heat. Stir until everything has dissolved and then take it off the heat and let it cool a bit. Then place the egg yolks one by one while constantly whisking.
Take the puff pastry and roll it out on your working surface (put a little flour under it and on top) and then roll it up and cut it into 12 equal pieces. Get your muffin tin, butter the insides and distribute the dough evenly with your finger. Then fill them with the cream we made earlier up to 2/3. Put the tin in the oven and bake it on 180°C (350°F) for about 30 minutes (keep an eye on them so they don't get burned).

When they are done, place them on a plate and let them cool a little. Then dust the top of each pastel de natas with powdered sugar and burn the tops with a blowtorch a little. To finish off dust some cinnamon on top. 

 Pastéis de Belém

 

I think you can decide which one is mine and which one is the original one from Belém, but still I had fun making these sweets and everyone who tasted it said it was pretty good :)

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Hungarian Smarni

Back home I see my grandparents almost every day, but since we live so far away from them now we can only talk on the phone, skype or if they visit us. When I don't see them for a long time I miss them, I miss talking to them, eating all the delicious food my grandmother makes for us, talking to them, watching movies together...

I was so excited when they told me that they are coming to see us. I was counting the days with my sister. They have been here for nearly two weeks now and we have done so many things and one of them was that I made Hungarian "smarni" with my grandmother. Originally, this is an Austrian dish regularly made by Hungarians too, just a little differently. We like to eat this with apricot jam (which is also home-made by my grandmother) and it is heavenly !! 

INGREDIENTS: 

10 dkg semolina (búzadara) 

2,5 dl milk 

3 eggs
pinch of salt
orange zest
lemon zest
4 tbs of oil

optional:

caster sugar

raisins (mazsola) (the amount you prefer)
apricot jam

Start by separating the egg whites from the egg yolks. Mix the semolina, the milk and the egg yolks in the bowl, and let it sit for minimum an hour.  Pour some milk on the raisins in a cup (until it covers them) so they can soften. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and add to the batter. Heat up 4 tablespoons of oil in a big pan, and pour in the batter (but make sure to turn it down to medium heat when you start frying the batter). Let one side fry like a thick pancake and then start folding it in half, and cutting it to little pieces with a wooden spatula. Repeat until the batter falls into little crumbles and get golden brown. When ready, grate some lemon and orange zest on it and also add your softened raisins. When it is done put it on a plate and optionally add a little bit of caster sugar on top (this is how I prefer this to be served) and also the apricot jam.

My grandparents are leaving soon and I am sad, because they have to go back to Hungary, so I won't see them for a while, but I am also happy, because it was so nice to see them and spend some time together.

If you decide to try out this Hungarian Smarni then take a picture of it and upload it to instagram or twitter and also don't forget to tag me in the photo.

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A Real Portuguese Pastelaria

Since today was a Sunday and my family and I were a bit tired we decided to have a chill day and spend some time together. So we started the day by sleeping in until noon and then we went to have brunch in a pastelaria in Monte Estoril. A pastelaria is a mixture of a cafe and a bakery shop and here in Portugal people have a routine of going to these pastelarias to have breakfast, lunch or just a snack. So we went to this place called Zenith Pastelaria, Salão De Chá. It is a lovely cafe that we discovered about a month ago and I really like to come here and order my usual and have a nice chat with whoever I am with. This place has my favourite pastries and also it has a modern design, like tables made from mirrors - so it is very hard not to look at yourself all the time! :)

I usually order galão(latte), a sandwich that is made from puff pastry and has butter, ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato inside. 

Russo is my favourite sweet pastry and because you have to finish brunch with something sweet I had to order one. It is made from puff pastry, it has a vanilla and cinnamon flavoured cream inside and it is dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. It looks so tempting and trust me when I say this - it's the BEST! And of course they had Pastel de Natas which I'm not going to write about now, but you can expect a post on it soon!

After we had a very nice brunch we went on a beautiful and relaxing walk on the beach. The ocean was stunning as always, and today was the fist warm day (it was around 18℃ )and finally it was so nice to be able to wear a jacket instead of my winter coat. 

While we were having brunch I took some photos of the place and the food, so I could show you guys what a real Portuguese pastelaria looks like. 

 

Galão (latte)

Sandwich

Chocolate Salami

My sister eating the Chocolate salami :)

 

Russo

My mom cought me looking at my self in the mirror  :)

The cool desing of the place

I like to write posts where I can give a little insight into my life and show you fun places in Portugal.I hope you enjoyed this post and feel free to write a comment on the blog, facebook, instagram or on twitter. 

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