What to Eat in the Azores: One Dish or Sweet from Each Island

Each of the nine Azorean islands has dishes and sweets that only make sense where they come from: a pot buried beside a volcanic fumarole, a clay dish, a cured cheese or a convent recipe. This guide picks one or two examples per island, from east to west, and links to the traditional recipe so you can try it at home too. The recipes are on our Portuguese-language recipe site.

Santa Maria

Biscoitos de orelha (“ear biscuits”) are one of the island’s most emblematic sweets. They are triangular, and the corners are cut with scissors before baking, which gives them their name. Papas de cachão are a humble, old dish made with cornmeal and traditionally cooked in an iron pot. Recipes (in Portuguese): biscoitos de orelha and papas de cachão.

São Miguel

Cozido das Furnas is cooked in the natural fumaroles of Furnas Lake. The ingredients (beef, pork, chicken, sausage, bacon, cabbage and vegetables) go into a pot buried in the ground and take about five hours to cook in the heat of the volcanic activity. Tasting it on the spot is an essential experience for anyone visiting the island. Among the sweets, queijadas de Vila Franca do Campo originate with the nuns of the former Convent of Santo André and belong to the Azorean convent-sweet tradition. Recipes (in Portuguese): cozido das Furnas and queijadas de Vila Franca do Campo.

Terceira

Alcatra is on the menu at the Holy Spirit festivities (Funções do Espírito Santo). There is no single recipe, since each parish has its own, but the essential element is always the clay dish, which gives the food its traditional flavour. Read more in our article Alcatra: the clay-pot dish that defines Terceira’s cuisine, or go straight to the alcatra recipe (in Portuguese).

Graciosa

Queijadas da Graciosa should not be confused with those of Vila Franca do Campo: they have a thin pastry and a creamy filling of milk and cinnamon. Recipe (in Portuguese): queijadas da Graciosa.

São Jorge

São Jorge DOP cheese has a sharp, intense flavour and is the island’s signature product. Among the sweets, rosquilhas fervidas (also known as rosquilhas de aguardente) are boiled in water before going into the oven, which gives them a thin, glossy crust and a light crumb. Recipes (in Portuguese): São Jorge DOP cheese pudding and rosquilhas fervidas.

Pico

Cacoila is made with stewing beef, marinated overnight with lard, butter, wine and peppercorns, and cooked in a clay pot. To drink, Lajido is a fortified wine from Pico, made mainly from the Verdelho grape, and the base of a simple cocktail with passion fruit liqueur and tonic water. Recipes (in Portuguese): cacoila à moda do Pico and Lajido Tónico.

Faial

Molho de ovo (“egg sauce”) is a stew of eggs, potatoes, onion and garlic, seasoned with lard, allspice, bay leaf and chilli paste. Recipe (in Portuguese): molho de ovo à moda do Faial.

Flores

Feijão assado (“baked beans”) in the style of Flores uses red beans soaked for 12 hours, smoked bacon, onion, garlic and tomato purée. Recipe (in Portuguese): feijão assado à moda das Flores.

Corvo

Corvo’s fish soup is a simple recipe made with fresh fish, potatoes and aromatic herbs, often cooked by fishermen after returning from sea. Another speciality is tortas de erva do calhau: erva do calhau is a seaweed gathered straight from the rocks along the coast which, once washed well to remove the salt, is mixed with eggs and flour and fried into small fritters. Recipes (in Portuguese): Corvo fish soup and tortas de erva do calhau.

Learn more

If some ingredients are unfamiliar, such as chilli paste, pimenta da terra or yam, see our guide Ingredientes da cozinha açoriana (in Portuguese). All the recipes are on Receitas Mundo Açores.

Featured image — Photo: Sara Araújo Marques / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0