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Recipe: Bife à Portuguesa, Portugal’s Saucy Signature Steak

Name: Bife à Portuguesa, Portuguese-style steak
Cuisine: Lisbon
Ingredients: Serves 1 ½ teaspoon coarse salt; 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil; 4 teaspoons butter; 200-250g lombo (sirloin) or vazia (filet mignon) steak, ideally around 3cm thick; 3 cloves garlic (15g total), peeled and sliced; 1 bay leaf ½ cup white wine; 1 thin slice of presunto (Portuguese smoked ham); 1 egg (optional) Chips

By Austin Bush

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Recipe: Bife à Portuguesa, Portugal’s Saucy Signature Steak

Recipe Information

This is, more or less, how Chef Manuel Fernandes makes Portuguese-style steak at Café de São Bento. We’ve shifted the addition of bay leaf and garlic to a later step, for more control for the home cook, but the results are the same.

If you want an especially lean, tender cut, opt for a lombo, equivalent to sirloin. We prefer a bit more fat and texture, and opted for vazia, beef tenderloin. A cheaper cut, such as pojadouro (roughly equivalent to rump or topside steak) works fine for this treatment as well, and is what you’ll find most places in Lisbon.

Ingredients

Serves 1

½ teaspoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 teaspoons butter
200-250g lombo (sirloin) or vazia (filet mignon) steak, ideally around 3cm thick
3 cloves garlic (15g total), peeled and sliced
1 bay leaf ½ cup white wine
1 thin slice of presunto (Portuguese smoked ham)
1 egg (optional)

Chips

Preparation

Step One

Sprinkle the coarse salt over both sides of the steak. Set aside.

Step Two

In a medium sized-saucepan over high heat, add the olive oil and 1 teaspoon of the butter. When the butter melts, add the steak, flipping occasionally and pressing to sear, frying until it has reached your desired degree of doneness. Remove the steak to a serving plate.

Step Three

Reduce the heat to medium, add the garlic and bay leaf and sauté, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and just starting to brown, around 1 minute.

Add the white wine, increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a rapid simmer. Add the smoked ham and “poach” in the wine until just firm, about 10 seconds. Remove the ham and place it on top of the steak.

Step Four

Add 2 teaspoons of butter to the wine mixture, stirring to combine and melt, and maintain at a rapid simmer until the liquid is reduced by a half or so and is just starting to get sauce-like and just barely thick syrupy. Pour this sauce over the steak.

Step Five

Wipe the pan clean, add the remaining 1 teaspoon of butter, and fry the egg, sunny-side-up, being careful not to break the yolk. Top the steak with the fried egg. Serve the steak with chips.

Written & photos by Austin Bush

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