Cozido à Portuguesa

I love cooking meals for family get-togethers, specially during summertime and during harsh, cold winter days, specially if the meal involves comforting food, where I put my heart on the plate. This typical dish, Portuguese "cozido",  has its origins in the Beira region and is commonly made from shin of beef, pork, and Portuguese smoked sausages and in some regions chicken, served with cabbage, carrots, turnips, rice and  potatoes. Traditionally a well plated dish will consist of some quantity of one of everything mentioned below albeit in a smaller cut up portion, but go with what you have, as I did and you'll surely won't regret it. Have fun in the kitchen!

Ingredients:

• stewing beef (whole piece not cut up stew meat)
• pork ribs
• pork neck bones
• morcela sausage (a Portuguese blood sausage)
• chourico sausage (the Portuguese equivalent to chorizo)
• salpicao sausage (a Portugese sausage)
• farinheira sausage (a Portuguese mealy sausage)
• lean unsmoked bacon slab, in one piece
• turnips
• potatoes
• white cabbage
• carrots
• rice

Place all the meat except for the sausages in boiling water enough to cover all and allow it to  cook at a low boil. Add salt and chili to taste. As each item of meat cooks, remove it from the broth into a separate dish.Please note that different meats will cook differently.  Check your meat periodically for your desired tenderness [I like it super tender].When all the meat has cooked thoroughly place the white cabbage, potatoes, carrots and turnips in the broth and cook.  Remove vegetables [as they may cook at varying rates check periodically] as they are cooked and set aside with the meat.  Finally add the sausages and boil until cooked being careful to watch the farinheira as it can explode.When the sausages are near being fully cooked gently place the meat back into the broth pot, along with vegetables so that all the ingredients can come up to temperature. Place the vegetables last into the pot.To plate the dish place the cabbage into a platter. Slice the beef, pork, chicken and sausages into manageable small pieces and place on top leaving the bone in pieces a little bigger so as to not distort the natural shape of the meat.Garnish the dish with the remaining vegetables around the platter and top with slices of sausage. I always like to reserve some of the broth and cook the rice in it, so I took  some broth out to cook the rice in it, before adding all the ingredients back into the pot to reheat. 

 Ingredientes:

• carne de vaca para estufar (peça inteira)
• costelas de porco
• ossos de porco do pescoço
• morcela
• chouriço
• salsicha salpicão (uma salsicha Português) 
• farinheira
• toucinho
• nabos
• batatas
• repolho branco
• cenouras
• arroz
• sal
• piri piri

Coloque toda a carne, exceto as salsichas em água suficiente para cobrir tudo e deixe cozinhar em lume baixo. Adicione sal e piri piri a gosto.À medida que cada peça de carne for cozendo, retire-a do molho da cozedura, para um prtao à parte.Lembre-se que as  diferentes carnes vão cozinhar de forma diferente. Verifique a carne periodicamente para que fique com a textura desejada [eu gosto da carne super tenra].Quando toda a carne estiver cozinhada, colocar o repolho branco, batatas, cenouras e nabos no caldo e cozinhe.Remover vegetais [como eles podem cozinhar a medidas variáveis ​​verificar periodicamente]à medida que estiverem cozidos e reserve à parte juntamente com a carne. Por fim, adicione os enchidos e deixe ferver até ficarem cozidos tendo o cuidado de ir verificando a farinheira, pois pode rebentar. Quando os enchidos estiverem perto de estar totalmente cozidos, coloque delicadamente a carne de volta na panela do caldo, juntamente com os legumes para que todos os ingredientes possam voltar a ficar à mesma teperatura . Coloque os vegetais por último na panela.Para o empratamento coloque o repolho num tabuleiro. Corte as carnes e  os enchidos em pedaços em pedaços pequenos, deixando o osso nos pedaços um pouco maiores, de modo a não distorcer a forma natural do carne.Guarneça o prato com os restantes legumes em torno do prato e cubra com os enchidos. Eu gosto sempre de reservar algum do caldo e cozinhar o arroz nele, por isso, tirei um pouco de caldo para cozinhar o arroz nele, antes de acrescentar todos os ingredientes de volta na panela para aquecer.