Cozido à Portuguesa (Portuguese stew)

Cozido à portuguesa is less a recipe than a national institution: a grand boiled dinner of beef, chicken, pork, a parade of smoked sausages, and vegetables cooked in the meats’ rich broth. It is what Portuguese families eat on winter Sundays when the whole clan gathers — and there are always leftovers, thank goodness.

Every region (and honestly, every grandmother) has its own version. The beauty of cozido is its flexibility: use the meats and sausages you can find, in the amounts that suit your table, and let the pot do the work.

Living in the US, I have learned to hunt down the smoked sausages at Portuguese and Brazilian markets — chouriço, morcela, salpicão — and they make all the difference. Serve everything sliced on a big platter with the vegetables, some good olive oil, and crusty bread for the broth.

Cozido à Portuguesa Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes · Cook time: 1 hour · Total: 1 hour 10 minutes · Servings: 4 · Calories: ~464 per serving

Ingredients

• About 1 pound stewing beef
• ½ chicken
• About 1 pound pork ribs
• 1 pig’s trotter (optional but traditional)
• A chunk of ham
• 1 pork sausage (chouriço)
• 1 blood sausage (morcela)
• 1 salpicão (Portuguese smoked loin sausage)
• A piece of salted bacon and a piece of fresh bacon
• Fresh and/or smoked pig’s ear (optional)
• 1 head Portuguese cabbage (penca) or savoy cabbage
• 3 to 4 carrots
• 4 potatoes
• 2 turnips
• Salt, to taste
• A drizzle of olive oil

Instructions

1. If any meats are salted, soak them for a few hours beforehand.
2. Put all the meats in a large pot of water with a drizzle of olive oil, season, and bring to a boil.
3. As they cook, remove each meat when it is done — sausages first, then the pork cuts, and finally the beef.
4. Add the vegetables to the same broth and cook until tender.
5. Turn off the heat, leaving the vegetables in the broth to stay warm.
6. Slice the meats and arrange them on a large platter with the vegetables around them. Serve hot.

Recipe Notes

• Salpicão is a smoked Portuguese sausage of seasoned pork loin — wine, garlic, paprika and bay leaf — in a thick casing.
• Portuguese penca cabbage grows in open leaves like kale; savoy cabbage is the best substitute in the US.
• Use the leftover broth to cook rice — arroz de cozido is arguably the best part of the whole meal.
• Adjust the meats freely to your taste and what your market offers; the method stays the same.