Portuguese cuisine

Portuguese cooking rests on salt cod, olive oil and egg yolks — so many yolks were left over that a whole tradition of pastry grew out of them.

It is said Portugal has a bacalhau recipe for every day of the year. The number is an exaggeration but the point holds: salt cod here is not one dish but a way of cooking, with its own rules for soaking and flaking.

The yolk-heavy pastry came out of the monasteries: egg whites clarified wine and starched habits, and there was nowhere to put the yolks. Hence pastel de nata and dozens of other sweets made of yolks alone.