I love seafood, and we don't get anywhere near enough of it in UK. My quest for fresh seafood took me to a small fishing village called Afurada on the Duoro River, opposite Porto in Portugal.
I arrived at the local market, a modern complex with not many stalls. I didn't have high hopes here as in my experience, normally the older the market the more good stuff there are. It was fairly quiet inside and there were only a couple stalls selling fruit and vegetables.
Then I saw a couple of stalls selling seafood!! The produce smelled so fresh and fishy, perfect for seafood lovers like me. If we had this in UK, I'd be here every day!
Let's find something that I can eat immediately. Afurada is well known for its seafood restaurants and barbeque outside on the streets. These places are rustic. If you have the freshest products, that's all you need, no need for fancy decor.
There weren't that many places opened when I visited in mid week but I found Taberna Do S Pedro that looked very irresistible. They had just started to setup the barbeque for lunchtime, and trays of fresh seafood were on display in the open fridge. I was starting to drool already!
This guy is responsible for cooking. He was so chilled and it looked like a pretty easy job. You just put the seafood in the grills, sprinkle a touch of salt on top and place the grills on top of the barbeque.
If it was that easy we'd all be opening our barbeque seafood restaurants! Seafood lovers will know there's an art and technique to cooking seafood. A few minutes over or under, can make all the difference to a good or bad seafood meal. If you overcook it, particularly fish, it becomes tough, rubbery and dry, not nice at all. You might as well eat cardboard boxes.
We ordered a plate of squid, a skewer of prawns and cuttlefish, a whole fish, I think it might be a sea bream, and a plate of sardines. Our order didn't take long to arrive. I could smell the charcoal barbecue aroma even before the plates were placed on our table, followed by the whiff of freshly cooked seafood. Everything was cooked to perfection, including the fish which was so juicy and tender. I haven't had such a lovely seafood meal in a long time.
Remember the seafood stall I showed you earlier on? The stall owner was very friendly, as was a customer, who is a regular and helped us to translate. Originally we thought we wouldn't be able to buy anything for dinner as the stall closes at 1pm but we wanted to have lunch first followed by a walkabout around the village. Then the stall owner said we she could ask the cafe in the market to keep the seafood for us, and we can pick it up whenever we wanted in the afternoon. She even took us over to the cafe, so the cafe owner would recognize us when we pickup our stuff. Problem solved!
We ordered a big sea white fish and the cuttle fish you see in the sink. The stall owner cleaned and prepared everything for us ready to cook in the evening.
Although we were tourists, and it's not like we'll be back for repeat business, everyone was incredibly nice. We were especially grateful for the cafe owner, there was nothing in for them and they kept our purchases in the fridge so it was nice and fresh.
That evening, we baked our fish and pan fried the cuttlefish. Another delicious meal, especially one that was purchased with kindness and human touch. These ingredients makes all the difference to a meal and is not something that you can buy.
