After having such an enjoyable time during our Taste of Lisboa food tour last year, when Brian suggested a Portuguese market tour and cooking class for GeeGee and me to attend, I jumped at the chance to participate. With Emmie being a big fan of spice-smelling and HelloFresh prepping, we decided to enroll her in the class as well.
We were greeted warmly at the Lisbon cooking school by Louis, the organizer, and Louisa, the chef. We were soon joined by a couple from Washington state and their college-aged son. Add a very friendly Australian woman and our small cooking class was complete. Our morning began with a walk to the nearest market where we were given a synopsis on Portuguese cooking and the importance of seafood. We purchased fresh bread, a baby shark, monkfish, calamari, and some fresh vegetables before returning to the cooking school.
The only child in the group, Emmie was given the title of sous chef and was quickly put to work making some Portuguese meatballs with alheira, a Kosher version of chorizo made with meats other than pork. While Emmie was very embarrassed to be singled out as the child in the group (as if people wouldn’t notice) and played hard to get, she did seem to enjoy making her meatballs.
After Emmie’s meatballs were cooking in the oven, Louisa, who spent 15 of the last 16 years working as a chef in New York City before returning home to Portugal a year ago, regaled us with a personal story.
Chosen as one of the chefs to cater Chelsea Clinton’s engagement party, Louisa spent hours and hours making fancy desserts for Chelsea to taste-test, but at the last minute, she decided to throw together a simple 10-minute Portuguese meringue and cream dish. Of course, the meringue and cream dish was the instant winner and Louisa was a bit disappointed that Chelsea didn’t even taste all of the other desserts before choosing the meringue to be served at her dinner. With that story in mind, we were coached through a group rendering of the egg cream and egg meringue dish flavored with cinnamon and a light zest of lemon.
The finished meringue dish.
After a snack of Emmie’s meatballs, olives, and olive oil with bread, we were put to work chopping peppers, tomatoes, and garlic as a group. While we were occupied, Louisa turned our baby shark bones into fish stock and carved up our monkfish. Sadly, Emmie wasn’t a fan of the meatballs, and Gee Gee and I tended to agree.
The veggies and monkfish were combined with rice and some of the completed shark/fish stock to form a risotto. The other half of the fish stock was combined with cilantro and a flour and cream mixture to constitute a fish soup. We were taught to clean the calamari and this too was added to the risotto dish.
The completed fish risotto dish.
The final hour of the class was spent eating our prepared dishes. GeeGee and I enjoyed the fish soup, which I did not expect to like as much as I did after seeing how much cilantro was added to the pot. Emmie, however, was not a fan. The fish risotto had a good flavor. While I found the bites with calamari to be a bit too fishy and chewy for my taste-buds, GeeGee polished off her entire bowl. Emmie, once again disturbed by seeing the fish cut up and added to our pot, voiced that it wasn’t her favorite dish.
Dessert was the finale to the day. While the ‘meringue’ was spongier that we expected (more like a cross between a homemade marshmallow and a meringue, versus a crunchy meringue) GeeGee and I both greatly enjoyed the light pudding-like dessert and vowed to make it again on our return home to the USA.
While we enjoyed our five hours at Cooking Lisbon, the class was not quite as hands-on as The Table Culinary Experience we’d completed in Canada in 2016. With Louisa prepping the monkfish and the baby shark and only three calamari to split between seven people for prep work, we didn’t feel like we got to do much that we don’t already do at home.
And while we love embracing seafood in a seafood-driven culture, there aren’t many places where you can buy fresh baby shark, calamari, or monkfish in Iowa, so we didn’t feel like the class will translate that well beyond Lisbon. Because we did not sign up for the “seafood” class but rather the regular Portuguese class, we would have appreciated a bit more variety in the types of dishes prepared. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time at Cooking Lisbon and if we are ever asked if we have eaten baby shark, much to Emmie’s horror, we can answer in the affirmative.
