No Portuguese Christmas table is complete without aletria: fine vermicelli cooked in sweet, lemon-and-cinnamon milk until it becomes a creamy pudding, finished with the traditional lattice of ground cinnamon on top. Drawing that lattice was my job as a child, and I took it very seriously.
The dish carries Moorish ancestry — aletria comes from the Arabic word for noodles — and centuries of Portuguese Christmases have polished it into the comfort dessert it is today.
Some families make it firm enough to slice, others soft and spoonable like rice pudding’s silkier cousin; the egg yolks in this version put it pleasantly in between. Serve it chilled, and let whoever draws the cinnamon pattern take their time.
Aletria Recipe
Prep time: 15 minutes (plus 2 hours chilling) · Cook time: 15 minutes · Total: 30 minutes active · Servings: 6 · Calories: ~266 per serving
Ingredients
- 4 cups whole milk
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 8 oz vermicelli pasta, broken into smaller pieces
- 3 egg yolks
- Pinch of salt
- Ground cinnamon, for the lattice
Instructions
- Combine the milk, water, sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon stick and salt in a large saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Lower the heat and stir in the butter.
- Add the vermicelli gradually, stirring so it does not clump, and cook 8 to 10 minutes, until tender but not mushy.
- Whisk the yolks in a small bowl and temper them with a ladleful of the hot milk, whisking constantly.
- Stir the yolk mixture back into the pan and cook 2 to 3 minutes on low, until the pudding thickens. Never let it boil.
- Discard the cinnamon stick, pour into a serving dish or ramekins, cool, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
- Before serving, dust with ground cinnamon — the criss-cross lattice is tradition, and half the fun.
Recipe Notes
- For sliceable aletria (the northern style), cook a few minutes longer and use a shallow platter.
- Orange zest can join or replace the lemon.
- It keeps 3 days refrigerated — convenient, since Christmas rarely ends in one day.
