Book review: Portugal: The Cookbook by Leandro Carreira

Mendes himself contributed to the book, as have chefs José Avillez, Vasco Coelho Santos, George Mendes, Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng. Portugal contains 450 recipes, with chapters including breads, soups, vegetables and mushrooms, an extensive selection of fish dishes, shellfish and snails, poultry and game, pork, beef and veal, mutton, lamb and goat, savoury cakes and rice dishes, desserts, sweet breads, cakes and tarts, and cookies, candies and jams. Each recipe indicates its regional origin, from the mountainous north to the southern beach resorts of the Algarve and the island outposts of Madeira and the Açores.

For those keen to look beyond port, salted cod and pastéis de nata, Portugal has so much to offer through preserving valuable recipes such as fatias de tomar, egg ‘cake' slices soaked in vanilla syrup which are now only sold in one shop in the country and require the use of a special pan that can only be bought in the city of Tomar.

Like across all cultures, there are some intriguing recipes that stem from necessity, such as using turnip tops and stale bread in soups, stews using offal, blood and brains, and cuts of meat not often found on restaurant menus these days.

This is an excellent addition to Phaidon's series and to the shelf of chefs looking to expand their knowledge of the food traditions of a country that is rightly becoming more widely recognised for its fascinating – and delicious – food scene.