Kitchen tradition

When I was a child, my knowledge of Portuguese cooking was confined to my grandmother’s kitchen on Maui.

She was a frugal woman, we were far from wealthy and our diet was much influenced by where we lived — in a deep valley that was pig — not fish or beef — country.

Later I would see a much broader world of Portuguese Hawaii cooking as I researched my upcoming book, "A Portuguese Kitchen," a project of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s "Hawaii Cooks" series in partnership with Mutual Publishing. (It’s available for pre-sale through the Star-Advertiser now, and will be in stores in November.)

Portuguese food is essentially Mediterranean (olive oil, garlic, tomatoes), but with an intriguing touch of the many other countries that Portuguese mariners explored and Portuguese colonists later ruled — spices you wouldn’t expect, from cinnamon to curry.

The ancestors of most Hawaii Portuguese didn’t come from mainland Portugal; they came from the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores, which are closer to Africa than to Europe. Their cooking there was influenced both by the proximity to Africa, with its spices, and by the English, who owned the vineyards where many people worked.

But as a youth in the 1950s, this is what I knew:

» Bread meant high, round loaves, with crackling golden crusts and tender, moist interiors. Old bread never dies in a Portuguese household; it just gets made into something else, most often soup. Bread soups range from soft and liquid to almost solid, resembling stuffing.

» Cabbage meant couves (KOO-vzh), an unheaded, bright-green vigorous member of the Brassica family sometimes called sea kale, easy to grow, prolific and once found in every Portuguese garden. Still in mine. Essential to certain soups.

» The end of the day meant Grandpa coming through the back door and sinking his fingers into the recycled mayonnaise jar full of pickled onions. I didn’t know any Portuguese who did not have such a jar in their home.

» No one in our family fished, but when a neighbor went fishing, aku bone was drenched in "vinha d’alhos" marinade (vinegar, salt, chili peppers, garlic) and fried.

» Christmas meant fasting in anticipation of Midnight Mass, and then a feast of "torresmos" (spicy vinha d’alhos fried pork), scrambled eggs, immense salty green olives and fresh-baked bread.

» Breakfast for Grandpa meant "sopas," an immense cup of ridiculously milky, sweet coffee with chunks of stale bread broken into it.

For me breakfast was usually "milho," a cornmeal mush that resembles polenta porridge. After you make the porridge, it can be eaten as is (with canned "cream" or sugar or butter or whatever you like); added as a thickener to a soup or stew while the porridge is still hot and runny or, best yet, refrigerated until it’s solidified, then sliced and fried. I’ve also baked second-day milho into a casserole with tomato sauce and other ingredients.

The trick to cooking a smooth milho is to soak a third of the cornmeal in water a few minutes in advance of cooking. Bring this to a boil, then add the remaining dry cornmeal in a steady stream while whisking. Take care, boiling milho spits!

Another childhood memory is the "cozido," or Portuguese boiled dinner, a meal our family had a couple of times a year. My grandmother’s version was very Westernized: steamed rather than boiled, using corned beef. But the traditional cozido is an all-day project involving multiple meats, vegetables, aromatics and starches, gently simmered on the stove top.

Cozido, in fact, is where this book started: It was the first recipe I tested, way back in April 2004. You start with bone-in meats, usually beef, chicken and pork, as well as ham hocks and Portuguese sausage. Depending on your family tradition, the meat is simmered slowly with flavorings such as parsley, onion and garlic and perhaps Portuguese five-spice: a mix of cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves and star anise. Vegetables are gradually added; they include potatoes, carrots and Portuguese cabbage, or collards or kale. When cooked, meats and vegetables are ladled out of the pot and kept warm in a low oven.

The broth is drained of solids, and then you can add rice, pasta, garbanzo beans (once again, whatever your family tradition dictates).

From this you have the components of three meals: Begin with soup — the hot broth, with whatever additions you have made, as a first course. The meat and vegetables are sliced and served with more hot broth over and some fresh parsley for garnish as the entree.

The next day, whatever is left over becomes soup again — everything thrown in together.

The distinctions between traditional cozido and the kind I grew up with characterize what I learned about Portuguese in Hawaii. In Portuguese conclaves around the U.S., I found the food spicier, the techniques different, the approaches more varied. Here in Hawaii we acculturated fast, and both our food and our culture changed rapidly, became more "American." We largely lost our ways. But not entirely.

This realization led to my collecting old community cookbooks and finding dishes that intrigued me. Soon I became interested in my culture beyond just wishing Grandma was still here to make me "mush" or torresmos.

The book that resulted is an amalgam of all these experiences — my travels, cooking experiments, talking to elders, scouring old cookbooks — all showing ways in which Hawaii Portuguese cooking is different from that elsewhere.

I hope you enjoy it.

MILHO
4 cups water
1 cup cornmeal, white or yellow
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup julienned Portuguese cabbage or collard greens (optional)

In a roomy pot, whisk together water and 1/2 cup of the cornmeal. Place pot over medium heat and add butter and salt. Bring to boil, stirring constantly.

Reduce heat to medium; pour remaining cornmeal in steady stream, whisking. Cook over medium heat

10 minutes; add greens and cook another 5 to 10 minutes. Serve as a side dish with fish or meats. Serves

4 to 6.

Variations: Omit greens and serve for breakfast, as a hot porridge. Instead of greens, use 1/2 cup minced flat-leaf parsley. Chill in pan, cut into cakes, fry and serve as appetizer.

Approximate nutritional information (based on 6 servings, with or without optional cabbage or collards): 130 calories, 4.5 g fat, 2.5 g saturated fat, 10 mg cholesterol, 250 mg sodium, 21 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, no sugar, 2 g protein

CHICKEN WITH OLIVES
1 tablespoon rendered bacon fat or lard
2 whole yellow onions, peeled and chopped
1 whole chicken, sectioned*
Flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dried marjoram (or twice that much fresh, if you have it)
1 cup chicken stock (more, if needed)
1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 cup seeded green olives, Spanish olives, halved, or seeded Kala­mata olives, or a mixture

In deep skillet or heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, melt fat or lard over medium heat and gently caramelize onions until golden. Rub chicken pieces well with salt, pepper and dried marjoram. Place chicken in fat and brown on both sides just until golden (not crispy brown). Pour stock over chicken, cover and cook 20 minutes. Scatter parsley and olives over chicken, add more stock if needed, cover and cook until chicken is cooked through (160 degrees on instant-read cooking thermometer). Serve hot with rice or steamed or fried pumpkin. Serves 6.

*Section raw chicken at joints and along bone lines so that you have wings, drumsticks and breasts cut in half. Or use pre-cut bone-in chicken pieces, such as two halved breasts and four thighs.

Approximate nutritional information (based on 3 pounds whole chicken with skin and not including salt to taste): 400 calories, 28 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 115 mg cholesterol, 700 mg sodium, 7 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g sugar, 29 g protein