Iberia · Volume 10, Bacalhau and the Long Way Home
Rojões à Moda do Minho, with Arroz de Sarrabulho
Minho, and the matança's own centrepiece dish
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 1 hour · Waiting 8 hours
- Researched
- 2 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The vinha d'alhos marinade at the centre of this dish is the same technique that, carried to Goa, eventually gave the English language vindaloo; see The History in Layers above.
As tradition built it
Serves 4 to 6. Overnight marinating, then about 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 600 g pork shoulder and rib, cut into cubes
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 litre white vinho verde
- to taste salt, pepper, paprika
- to taste pork lard, for frying
For the arroz de sarrabulho
- 1 piece cured ham
- as available pork offal and bones
- 1 onion
- 1 bunch parsley
- 50 ml olive oil
- to taste cumin
- 1 lemon
- as available pork blood
Method
- Combine the vinho verde, garlic, salt, pepper and paprika, and marinate the pork in it overnight, from one day to the next.
- Fry the marinated pork in lard until cooked through and well coloured.
- Simmer the bones and offal separately to make a stock for the rice.
- Sauté onion in olive oil, add the stock, then rice at roughly a 3:1 liquid to rice ratio, folding in the cured ham and shredded meats partway through.
- Stir in diluted pork blood and cumin near the end of cooking, and serve immediately, since the rice loses its character if left standing.
- Serve the pork alongside with hand cut fried potatoes, lemon and parsley.
What a modern chef changes
The same marinade, given the same respect this chapter's technique ladder asks of it
Rung 4
Method
- Weigh the marinade's ratio rather than guessing it, and vacuum seal the pork with it for the overnight cure, for a faster, more even penetration than an open dish achieves.
- Finish the pork cubes in a very hot pan for a shorter final sear, having already cooked them through gently, for a crisper exterior without the overcooked centre a single long fry in lard risks.
- Reduce the marinade itself, strained, into a glaze for the finished pork, rather than discarding it, a genuine use for a liquid this cuisine has always treated as more than a bath to soak in.