Pastel de Tentúgal
Pastel de Tentúgal (plural: Pastéis de Tentúgal ) is a dessert from the Portuguese town of Tentúgal , in the district of Montemor-o-Velho . It is one of the traditional Portuguese desserts of the Doçaria Conventual .
history
The Convento da Nossa Senhora da Natividade monastery in Tentúgal, founded in 1565, was often paid by the surrounding population in the form of eggs, as most of them lived in almost destitute circumstances and the easy-to-keep chickens were the most common domestic animals. The nuns of the monastery used the egg white to clarify the wine and to strengthen the laundry, especially their hoods. They mainly made desserts from the egg yolk.
During the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , French troops came through Tentúgal on October 1, 1810, and the nuns of the monastery fled to all parts of the country. Upon their return, they found their facilities and supplies destroyed and looted. After the Miguelistenkrieg in 1834 all religious orders in Portugal were expropriated. For material reasons, the residents of the monastery were now forced to develop their own sources of income. The scheduled sale of their desserts proved to be a suitable means. Located on the carriage road from Coimbra to Figueira da Foz , Tentúgal was the only larger rest house outside the cities. In particular, the Pastel de Tentúgal gained increasing popularity.
In order to cope with the steadily increasing production, the nuns had to employ local women to help. When the last nun left the monastery in 1898, the pastéis in Tentúgal were already being made and sold by a few local families. In the course of the anti-church development before and after the proclamation of the republic in 1910 , the monastery continued to fall into disrepair, so that today only the church remains.
The pastéis are now made by six Tentúgal factories. They are now known nationwide and are considered a particular regional specialty.
In 2010, the largest pastel de Tentúgal in the world was baked in Tentúgal with a pastel over ten meters long , and it was included in the Guinness Book of Records .
The manufacturers
Today, up to 200,000 pastéis are produced in Tentúgal every month. The confectioners that produce them are organized in the Associação dos Pasteleiros de Tentúgal , but some of them already have premises outside of Tentúgal. The association aims to maintain and improve product quality, manufacturing hygiene, training, marketing, and corporate innovation. It also ensures that the pastéis is only produced by local companies. The six manufacturers include both small family businesses and larger businesses.
The association's application to provide the Pastel de Tentúgal not only organizationally but also legally with a registered designation of origin is about to be approved.
Manufacturing
The decisive factor is the quality of the dough, which is only made from flour and water, the humidity in the room and the purity of air bubbles in the dough so that it can be spread and folded thin enough by pulling it in phases. A small piece of dough is turned into a space-filling, between 0.06 mm and 0.15 mm high, flat, finally almost transparent skin, from which about 10 × 14 cm large rags are cut out. These represent the shell of the pastel. At the end you put the filling made from egg yolk and sugar, then it is turned over three times, the corners are rolled up, and unfolded to strengthen and decorate. Before adding the filling (inside) and after folding it (outside), the dough is coated with liquefied butter. After the subsequent baking process, which makes the puff pastry crispy and very fragile, the pastel is sprinkled with powdered sugar and often also with cinnamon.
The Pastéis de Tentúgal are essentially offered in two forms. On the one hand in the shape of a stick , long and rectangular as Palito (German: toothpick or stick), on the other hand, half-round as Meia-lua (German: half moon), these are often additionally sprinkled with roasted almond slivers. The Palito is the much better known variant.
Web links
- Association of Pastel Confectioners from Tentúgal
- The Pasteis de Tentúgal on Facebook
- TV report on the candidacy of the Pastel de Tentúgal in the election of the country's seven gastronomic wonders , organized by the RTP in 2011 (recorded on YouTube )
- Three-minute video documentation , clip in English on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.leitesculinaria.com , accessed on November 12, 2012
- ↑ www.aptentugal.com.sapo.pt ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (under A Associação , A Doaria and O Convento ), accessed November 12, 2012
- ↑ Article of September 30, 2012 in the Tagesspiegel , accessed on November 12, 2012
- ↑ www.tvi24.iol.pt , accessed on November 13, 2012
- ↑ Official document (German version) (PDF) on the application to the EU , accessed on November 12, 2012
- ↑ www.aptentugal.com.sapo.pt ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (under A Associação and Contactos - Associados ), accessed November 12, 2012
- ↑ www.eur-lex.europa.eu (PDF) , accessed on November 13, 2012
- ↑ www.olivieranquier.com.br , accessed on November 13, 2012
- ↑ www.portugal.gastronomias.com , accessed on November 13, 2012
