Bifanas: Portuguese pork sandwich

Portugal (national street food)

Portugal's great street food — thin slices of pork shoulder marinated in white wine, garlic, pimentão (sweet red pepper paste), bay leaf, and sometimes piri piri, then cooked quickly in a hot pan and served in a papo-seco (crusty Portuguese roll). The bifana is street-corner food eaten standing up, and the best ones — at street stalls during Lisbon's Festas dos Santos Populares in June, or at the legendary Cervejaria Ramiro — have a specific character: the pork is soft, the sauce is slightly acidic from the wine and pepper paste, and the roll is slightly soggy where it has absorbed the cooking juices. Like the francesinha, the bifana is an institution rather than a recipe.

Not yet written for this entry.

Not yet written for this entry.