If you’ve ever spent time in Portugal you’re likely familiar with the beautiful clamshell-shaped, traditionally copper-hammered cooking devices called cataplanas.
Aromatics are sautéed in the bottom of the pan, ingredients are layered, liquid is added, and the pan is sealed shut with its attached hinges and sidelocks.
When sealed, they’re airtight, acting like a pressure cooker. The pan is then placed on a heat source, steaming the contents, locking in flavor, and delivering a delicious meal.
It’s imagined that fishermen, hunters, and nomads filled their cataplanas with garlic, onions, herbs, vegetables, and olive oil and sealed them shut for transport as they began their working day, later adding their catch to the pan and cooking over glowing embers as the sun began to set.
Cataplanas, as the prepared dishes are known, can be made with fish, meat, or vegetables. They can even make desserts.
Once you learn the techniques, your cataplana creations will be limited only by your imagination.
Chicken, Sweet Potato, And Clam Cataplana
This recipe is an adaptation of the traditional cataplana dish called Dona Galinha Foi à Praia (“Mrs Chicken went to the beach”).
Ingredients
• 450 grams of chicken
• Coarse sea salt and pepper to taste
• Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 6 cloves of garlic, unpeeled, crushed
• Fresh rosemary and thyme
• 100 milliliters of white wine
• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• Olive oil
• 150 grams of fatty bacon
• 1 large onion, cut into half moons
• 1 fresh malagueta pepper, chopped (test for heat)
• Paprika
• 1 green or red pepper
• 600 grams of clams
• Fresh mint
• Cilantro
• Oregano
Directions
The night before, cut the chicken into small pieces and season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and white wine. Marinate in the fridge overnight.
On the day, bake the potatoes in their skin until firm. Remove the chicken from the marinade, reserve the liquid, and separate out the herbs.
In the cataplana, confit the chicken in olive oil with the crushed unpeeled garlic and herbs from the marinade until cooked.
Confiting consists of cooking for a long time at low temperature, beginning with “frying” then lowering the temperature so that the food cooks in the fat.
Remove the chicken and half the fat and sauté the bacon, onion, and malagueta.
Return the chicken to the pan, add the liquid from the marinade, paprika, and red or green pepper.
Cover and simmer for four minutes.
Add the sweet potatoes cut in rounds, the clams, cilantro, mint, and oregano. Close the cataplana and simmer for another four to five minutes, flipping the cataplana over occasionally.
Open and serve with style.
Sincerely,
The Editors of Live And Invest Overseas
