Portuguese · Azores · main

Cozido das Furnas

Cozido das Furnas reads umami 5.6, richness 5.4 and salinity 4.1 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Portuguese · Azores main, about 6 hr 30 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 6.2 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 4.2 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 1.4 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 2.7 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 5.5 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 3.1 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 5.6 · Richness 5.4 · Salinity 4.1 · Sweetness 3.8 · Allium 2.8 · Earthy 2.3 · Heat 2.2 · Smoke 2.1 · Funk & Ferment 1.7 · Sourness 1.3 · Fruity 1.1 · Warm Spice 1.0 · Bitterness 0.9 · Herbaceous 0.6 · Nutty 0.5

What's in it (13)

• beef shin — 600 g
• pork belly — 400 g
• chorizo — 200 g
• morcela — 150 g
• chicken thighs — 350 g
• cabbage — 400 g
• potatoes — 500 g
• yam — 300 g
• red-skinned sweet potatoes — 300 g
• carrots — 250 g
• onions — 300 g
• salt — 12 g
• bay leaf — 1 g

Time & effort: about 6 hr 30 min (6 hr 15 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 106.8 kcal, 4.2 g protein, 7.8 g fat, 5.1 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

1. At Furnas on São Miguel the ground is hot. Cooks lower a lidded pot into a hole dug in the volcanic caldeira beside the lake, cover it with earth, and come back five or six hours later. The steam and heat come out of the ground itself. This is the only cozido in Portugal cooked with no water and no fire, and the flavour is different from a boiled one — sweeter, deeper, faintly sulphurous in a way people either love or do not.
2. You will almost certainly be cooking this in an oven. Say so honestly rather than pretending: use a heavy lidded casserole at 120C (250F) for the same length of time, and add 200 ml of water, because your oven will not supply the ground's moisture. The yams and the layering still make it Azorean.
3. Season the beef, pork and chicken with the coarse salt and leave 30 minutes at room temperature.
4. Layer the pot in this order and take 10 minutes over it, because the order is the recipe: the beef, pork and chicken on the bottom where the heat is fiercest, the halved onions and bay leaves tucked among them, and the chouriço and morcela laid on top of the meats so their fat drips down through everything.
5. Then the vegetables on top: carrots, potatoes, yam, sweet potato, and the cabbage wedges last of all, at the top, where they steam rather than boil. Pack it tightly, put the lid on, and if you are burying it, wrap the whole pot in a cloth sack.
6. Cook 5 and a half hours without opening it. There is no stirring, no checking and no adjusting — the discipline of not looking is part of why it works.
7. Rest 15 minutes with the lid on, then unpack it in layers onto a large platter, vegetables at one end and meats at the other, sliced. Serve with the strong local mustard and, if you have it, a slice of São Jorge cheese afterwards.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Tripas à Moda do Porto — Portuguese
• Char-Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin — American
• Alheira — Portuguese
• Hoppin' John Soup — Southern
• Spicy Sausage and Tortellini Soup — Italian-American

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.