Today I propose you a sandwich, a sandwich that I tasted this winter when I went to spend New Year’s Eve in Portugal in Porto.

There are two typical “sandwiches” in Porto: the “Francesiña” and the “Bifana”. After tasting both, the one I liked the most and would not stop eating was the second one, the Bifana.

This is a typical recipe that is commonly made in the houses of the Porto area and is made with thin slices of meat cooked in a ‘molho’, a very liquid sauce with tomato, various spices and beer.

In Lisbon, for example, it is made without tomato.

Ingredients for 4 sandwiches

• 600 g pork loin cut into thin slices, carpaccio style
• 200 g onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 bottle of tomato sauce
• 2 teaspoons of sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon of white pepper
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• Piripiri (very spicy oil typical of Portugal) or one crumbled chilli pepper
• 1 teaspoon of cumin powder (optional)
• 1 33 ml can of beer
• ½ glass of white wine
• Water as needed
• Salt to taste
• Four Rosetta or Ciabatta bread rolls

Preparation methodology

Heat the oil in your Ghisanativa, add the chopped garlic cloves (1) and the sliced onion and leave to stew for about ten minutes (2) in a covered pan. If necessary, add a little water.

Add the spices (4) – chilli only if you like a slightly spicy taste – and the tomato sauce and leave to gain flavour for five minutes.

Then add the beer (5), white wine and salt (6) and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. After this time, blend everything together with a blender (7).

The result is a kind of red broth: taste it and adjust the salt if necessary. (8)

Then put our loin slices 1 by 1 to boil in this “broth” (9) for at least 40 to 50 minutes. Check that the stock does not reduce too much (10).

The stock should not become a thick sauce. If it does, add a little water. (11)

When the sauce is ready, cut the rolls in half without separating them completely and use tongs to fill them with the meat and sauce. Then close the sandwich and dip half of it in the remaining sauce. (12)

And voilà, the sandwich is ready!

If you prefer, you can grill both halves of the sandwich before filling it.

Michela Oppo

“Cooking teacher, Venetian by adoption, born and lived until the age of 18 in the city of La Spezia from a Sardinian father and a Ligurian mother, from La Spezia to be precise, with a little Piedmontese blood. I left pieces of my heart in Shanghai, Buenos Aires and London. There are many reasons why I cook, to feed and to nourish myself of course, but I think I cook above all for love, for love of my loved ones and why not, to be loved in turn. I love the tango, the sea, books that make you dream, ceramics, fans, languages and… cooking and baking of course!”

The recipe was prepared on