We really did it, a gourmet BBQ!

This was a very special session. It was our first supper club out in the air.
This time the location was the terrace in the Pensão Rosinha, the one that is located in Praça das Flores. We were a bit concerned because the temperature on the week before reached 40ºc in Lisbon, and the terrace can be really hard to stand with that kind of heat. So we came up with all sort of ways to refresh the supper club, we even got an outdoor shower... just in case. But we were so lucky that the sunday of the supper club turned out to have really nice weather, not hot, not cold, enough clouds to protect us from what would have been really hot otherwise.

Mariana Cardoso was in charge of the grill, and demoed some cool grilling techniques. Paulo and Camila did a great work arranging everything to receive our guests. We had refreshing drinks, nice music, and a really nice Lisbon sunday mood. So we all sat and ate and talked for five hours, time just flew I guess... once more we stated that when people get together around a table with good food, great moments happen.

This was the menu for this session:

Cocktail
Strawberry Basil Lemonade

Starter
My grandma's special oven fried sprats
Grilled figs with honey, hot sauce and pancetta

Courses
Grilled vegetables salad (courgete, eggplant, red onion) with burrata cheese
Grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, honey and hot sauce
Grilled octopus with grapefruit and dill sauce
Mexican salad
Roasted chuck calf with cherry and hazelnut chutney

Dessert
Grilled peach, basil icecream and carob cookie

What will it be next?

Wanna find out what is a Gourmet BBQ?

So do we!

We've been working on the concept. Does gourmet mean fancy, or can we have finger food? Is it even possible to have a BBQ without finger food? Well... we like finger food.

This means that we have the date for the next session. We're having a sunday lunch supper club session.

And this time we are doing it on the lovely terrace of Pensão Rosinha #1, it will also be an outdoor session.

On the 14th of July.

Send us an email if you want to be part of it, we will love to hear from you.

maryandrose.supperclub@gmail.com

Santos Populares style!

This time we had a predetermined theme for this first official Mary and Rose session: Santos Populares in Lisbon.

During the summer, in the month of June, festivities dedicated to three saints known as Santos Populares take place all over Portugal. Saint Anthony (Santo António) is celebrated on the night of 12th-13 June, especially in Lisbon (where that saint was born and lived most of his life), with Marchas Populares (a street carnival) and other festivities. (from wikipedia)

As in all portuguese popular celebrations, food plays a very important role, Santo António's night in Lisbon just would be the same without sardines. Lots of them, being grilled in the street everywhere. It's a very loud, fun and smelly night. In contrast with this, the other main symbol is the sweet basil (mangerico) usually decorated with a paper flower, and a compulsory quatrain.

All this put together, adding the fact that summer is here, we got inspired to design a session and a menu:

Cocktail
Champareão

Starters
Smoked chicken patty pie with catupiry cheese
Filo squares with goat cheese and fig and laurel jam
Portuguese sardine on corn bread

Palate cleanser
Raspchamp

Main course
Pork ribs with port wine and thyme reduction. baked potatoes with rosemary, watercress with beetroot sprouts, roasted cherry tomatoes

Dessert
sweet bacon fritter with cardamom foam and dried rose petal

To finish the meal we served a home made mandarin liqueur.