November 2016 – The Basque Wife

I must confess…I have a problem…I collect cookbooks. I haven’t counted them in a while, and I’m afraid to see how many I own. Spanish, Portuguese, Azorean, canning, Dutch oven, the list goes on and on! Those are the actual books… I’m not counting the e-books I have on my iPad! I have one Azorean cookbook, Food of the Azores Islands, by Deolinda Maria Avila, that has some wonderful recipes including this bean tart. I am always looking for bean dishes for the California Beans Bean Sack blog I write, and I found this wonderful queijadas recipe that uses beans. We had something similar at Tasca restaurant in Sao Miguel in the Azores. This recipe takes a while, but it is well worth the time.

Queijadas de Feijão
Bean Tarts

adapted from Food of the Azores Islands

Ingredients:
2 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups bean puree
1/2 Tablespoon butter
6 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon lemon rind
1/2 cup ground almonds or almond flour

Instructions:
Soak 1 cup of white beans overnight in water. Drain and rinse beans. Put in a small saucepan with water to just cover and cook until softened. Drain beans. Put beans in a food processor and puree. Measure out 1 1/3 cups.
Bring sugar with 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan to pearl stage. Add bean puree and ground almonds to sugar mixture, bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix very fast so the yolks don’t coagulate. Butter and line tart tins or muffin tins with a pastry of your choice. Fill with the bean mixture about half full. If using individual tins place them on a baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes, being careful not to burn. Remove from tins and cool. Makes about 20-24.

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Wow…sorry I haven’t posted anything for over two years! Time flies!

My husband retired in April of 2015 and soon after we took our kids and their significant others to the Azores Islands to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Both my maternal grandparents were born in the Azores, my grandfather in Terceira and my grandmother in Sao Jorge. We started our trip by unexpectedly having to stay overnight on the island of Sao Miguel. There was a terrible storm, and after landing and waiting for a connecting flight for over 5 hours, the airlines canceled our next leg to the island of Sao Jorge. The airport in Sao Miguel is small, and we weren’t sure what to do, but we didn’t have to worry, SATA airline took care of everything. There were several flights canceled, but the airline personnel found us all hotel rooms, gave us taxi and food vouchers for two meals each, all on the airline! I would fly SATA again! It turned out to be an unexpected bonus. We were fortunate to catch the last night of a festival in Ponta Delgada!

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Festa do Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres, (meaning the Festival of the Christ of Miracles)

Our tour of the Açores included three islands; Sao Miguel, Terceira, and Sao Jorge. The Açores are in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and have a tropical climate. We toured a pineapple plantation and a tea plantation. The pineapples are smaller than the Hawaiian pineapples and a very sweet.

fullsizerender-copy — Cracas (barnacles) eaten with a nail to dig them out. Street food at a bull fight in Terceira.

fullsizerender — Pineapple plantation, Sao Miguel

I had read about this small factory in Sao Miguel and knew I wanted to go get some Queijadas. They were amazing. Each is individually wrapped in tissue paper. Queijadas are a custard tart. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of them…I was too anxious to eat them! thumb_img_7834_1024