BEER SNACKS: PORK BIFANA

Hey folks,

Welcome back to How I Cook+.

Beer Snacks is back! just in time for summer and the World Cup! It’s one of my highlights of the year, shooting this series for you all, we pack it into two or three of the best days on set. The recipes are big, bold, exciting and packed full of flavour, do they stretch the definition of the word snack to yawning breaking point? Absolutely, yes. We’ve got lobster rolls, mortadella skewers, lamb T-bone, chicken tsukune and much more on the way. I’ll be sharing a handful of my favourites from the series on the substack here, so stay locked in.

First up, the mighty Portuguese bifana a shirt-ruiner of a sandwich that is literally cooked with beer, a satan-red bath of spicy, porky, bay-infused boiling beer, at that.

Invite the crew over, make a big stack of bifanas and open some ice cold beers. It’s coming home!!

B x

PORK BIFANA

In 2017 I had my first chomp of a pork bifana at Primavera Sound Porto and that was that. This sandwich is a lifer. It’s ultra-simple and proof that the best foods don't need a long list of ingredients or dramatic, architectural design. At first glance, it looks almost too simple to be special: reddish, boiled pork in a very humble, crusty bread roll. That's it. No towering stack of toppings, no slick of gooey melted cheese, no multi-coloured-dream-pickles. And yet, one bite of a really good bifana and you'll quickly understand why the Portuguese are so die hard.

Like many beloved national dishes, the bifana changes depending on where you are in Portugal. In Lisbon and much of the south, you’ll often encounter a lighter version featuring thin pork slices and a relatively delicate garlic-and-wine sauce. It’s elegant in its simplicity and lets the pork shine. Head north toward Porto, and things become a bit more robust. The pork may be cooked longer, the sauce richer and spicier with beer and lard, and the entire sandwich more generously drenched in flavorful juices.

What makes the bifana so memorable is how all these elements come together. The savory pork, the punch of garlic, the subtle bitterness of the broth, the fragrant bay leaf, the gentle warmth of paprika, the sweet heat of good Paladin mustard and the crusty roll create a combination that is far, far greater than the sum of its parts. It’s note-perfect drinking food.