Alheira
Sausage of bread, poultry and meat, created in the fifteenth century by the forcibly converted Jews (cristãos-novos) to simulate the consumption of pork in the eyes of the Inquisition. The Trás-os-Montes region still produces the reference version.
| Stale country bread | 300 g |
| Cooked chicken or turkey, shredded | 250 g |
| Cooked pork, chopped (shoulder) | 200 g |
| Smoked bacon, diced | 100 g |
| Fat from cooking the meats | 100 g |
| Cooking broth | 150 ml |
| Fine salt | 12 g |
| Fresh garlic, crushed | 10 g |
| Sweet paprika (colorau) | 8 g |
| Hot chilli (piri-piri), optional | 1 g |
| Fresh parsley, chopped | 15 g |
| Beef casing (Ø 36–40 mm) | — |
- Cooking the meats: Cook the chicken and the pork separately in salted water until tender. Reserve the broth. Shred the chicken, then chop the pork.
- Preparing the bread: Crumble the stale bread. Moisten with the hot broth and the cooking fat. Leave to swell.
- Mixing: Combine the soaked bread, the shredded meats, the diced bacon, the garlic, the paprika, the chilli and the parsley. The texture should be supple and homogeneous, almost like a quenelle mixture.
- Seasoning: Taste and adjust the salt. The mixture should be well seasoned.
- Stuffing: Stuff without packing too tightly (the alheira swells). Form horseshoe-shaped sausages 15 to 20 cm long.
- Drying/smoking: Dry for 24 hours, then smoke lightly over wood for 3 to 5 days, or simply dry.
- Cooking: Prick and grill, fry in a pan or roast in the oven until the skin is crisp. Serve with a fried egg and chips.
The origin of the alheira is documented in the context of the Portuguese Inquisition. In 1497, King Manuel I ordered the forced conversion of all the Jews of Portugal to Christianity. The cristãos-novos, converted under duress, went on secretly practising Judaism while keeping up the appearances of Christian observance. The Portuguese Inquisition, established in 1536, watched their eating habits: not eating pork was one of the tell-tale signs of continued Jewish practice. These families’ answer was to make a sausage whose appearance (natural casing, the red of the paprika, smoking in the chimney) was identical to that of pork charcuterie, but whose contents held no pork. This sausage hanging in the family chimney attested to the consumption of pork. The first references to the term alheira in the Portuguese archives date from the sixteenth century, notably in the trials of the Portuguese Inquisition, where families of cristãos-novos are accused of not eating pork despite the presence of sausages in their homes.
Its name derives from the Portuguese alho, the garlic whose aroma dominates the original preparation.
After the abolition of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1821, the religious constraint that had defined the recipe gradually fell away. The families who went on making the alheira worked pork into it, at first in small quantities, then more systematically. The alheira de Mirandela, produced in the Trás-os-Montes region of north-eastern Portugal, has held a European PGI since 2016 and is regarded as the reference. Its present composition contains pork. Mirandela holds a dedicated fair each year that draws visitors from across the country.
It is eaten grilled or fried, served with a fried egg and chips, a usage that has become standard in Portuguese restaurants since the 1990s. It also appears on the mixed charcuterie boards at tascos (the Portuguese counterpart to the French bistro) and in restaurants serving regional cuisine. Its consumption is an everyday matter in the north of Portugal, but festive in the other regions.
Many restaurants and producers put forward the cristãos-novos origin of the preparation as a marker of identity. The alheira is little known outside Portugal and little distributed internationally.
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