#FlavoursOfLisbon Cookery Event

I was invited with a group of lovely bloggers to have a little taste of Portugal through an exciting Portuguese #FlavoursOfLisbon cooking event at the Atelier des Chefs cookery school in London.

This is the time of the year when I start feeling bored of the same daily routine and just fancy getting away. I would love to be able to have at least a weekend away just with Nick and enjoy some quality time together. There are plenty of amazing places to visit around Europe but in particular I really would like to visit Portugal. I have never been there and I have heard lots of great things about it. In particular I have in my mind, Lisbon and now this dream of getting away to Lisbon is even easier to do with Monarch’s new flight path to Lisbon, flying from Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham.

#FlavoursOfLisbon Cookery Event

It was a lovely evening that involved drinks and nibbles to start with and then we moved onto cooking and finally dining with a 2 course meal and even more drinks! Woohoo!! How great is that?

I was so keen to experience the #FlavoursOfLisbon as this was going to be my first time cooking and tasting this. I have never tried any of these dishes before. The menu for the night was Portuguese Pork and Clam Stew (Carne de Porco a Alentejana) and Portuguese Custard Tart (Pasteis de Nata).

This was an interesting event for me as everybody who knows me is aware of my lack of cooking skills! I’m not very good at it and I’m better if I’m miles away from the kitchen, LOL! Thank goodness Nick likes cooking and he actually does it quite well. The girls and I enjoy his home made meals during the weekends especially when he fancies doing a roasted dinner! Yummy! 🙂

I thought I was going to feel very awkward like a fish out of water but I was wrong. I had a very good time and enjoyed learning how to cook this meal. Everybody was very nice and the chef was very patient with me. She taught me some very useful tips about food preparation like, for example, how to peel and cut the garlic in a quick and easy way. I also learned how to properly peel the skin from an orange. They are probably silly things that you might do every day when cooking but for me her tips were great, LOL!!!

Cooking the meal was a group effort which made the whole evening even more enjoyable. To make it a little bit different and entertaining, we were divided into 2 groups and made it into a competition. It was actually very fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

The instructions for the main meal weren’t difficult to follow which I was very glad about as I was worried that I would be doing something wrong and end up ruining the food for everybody, LOL!

I was responsible for cooking the pork which I thought was an important task for me to be trusted with. I was crossing my fingers all the time, hoping that I wasn’t going to burn it and thank goodness I didn’t. The cooker was so hot  it felt like I was in a sauna whilst I was cooking!!! At the end, all the effort was of course worth it because it tasted amazing.

The main meal had clams as a second main ingredient. I have never tried this before and I was a little bit apprehensive because I thought it was going to taste very fishy, but I was wrong. It was actually very nice and delicious. I think my Dad would be very proud of me as he loves sea food! 😉

In between cooking the main meal we also prepared the dessert. We started with preparing the custard and then we rolled the pastry. We then filled the pastry with the custard and placed it in the oven to cook. The Pasteis de Nata was also very tasty.

After finishing our cooking and before we were ready to move to the dining table we had a lovely group photo taken which I love as I will now remember everybody that also attended the event.

We all moved to a long table to enjoy our main meal and the dessert. The main meal was accompanied with delicious potatoes. I was very pleased with this Portuguese meal and now I really fancy flying to Lisbon to try it directly from the masters! I love the dessert so much too that instead of having one I actually had 2, LOL! If you would like to try these recipes yourself at home you could check the recipe of the Carne de Porco a Alentejana and the recipe of the Pasteis de Nata.

It was very nice to meet new people and also to see some familiar faces from previous events. They were all very friendly and I had a really good time!

What do you think of this Portuguese meal? Have you tried it before? Would you love to try it yourself too? Have you been to Lisbon or Portugal before? If so, what other meals would you recommend to try? Please leave a message as I would love to read what your thoughts are. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Love you all ❤️

Franca  💋