Francesinha ( meaning ''Frenchie'') is a Portuguese

sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

originally from

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...

, made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like

chipolata A chipolata () is a type of fresh sausage, likely created in France. Sausages by that name appear in the 1903 edition of Escoffier's . Chipolatas are often prepared as a relatively thin and short sausage. Chipolatas are typically made from coar ...

, steak or roast meat, and covered with melted cheese and a hot and thick spiced

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

and

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

sauce. It is typically served with

french fries French fries (North American English), chips (British English), finger chips (Indian English), french-fried potatoes, or simply fries, are '' batonnet'' or ''allumette''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. Th ...

History

Daniel David de Silva, a returned French emigrant from France and Belgium, tried to adapt the croque-monsieur to the Portuguese taste when he moved to

. He first made the sandwich with local meats and his special sauce in 1953 at 'A ''Regaleira, a restaurant in Rua do Bonjardim,

; the francesinha quickly became a very popular dish and deeply associated with the city, although it can be found in many other places in Portugal. A classic francesinha meal would include the sandwich, surrounded on a bed of French fries doused in the famous

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

, and complemented with a ''fino'', a draught beer.

Variations

There is no standard recipe for the francesinha. Different restaurants in Portugal have special variations, such as: * Café Barcarola (Porto): Francesinha à Barcarola - A Francesinha Especial with

prawns Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (which is a member of the order decapoda), some of which can be eaten. The term "prawn"Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature ...

and

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are ref ...

; * Café Ábaco (Porto): Francesinha de carne assada - A Francesinha Especial with roast pork; * A Cascata (Porto): ''Francesinha à Cascata'' - A Francesinha Especial with

mushrooms A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

and

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

; * Restaurante Cunha (Porto): Francesinha à Cunha - Extremely large Francesinha. The (special francesinha) is a francesinha with egg and/or potato chips. Other variations of the original include fillings such as

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

, pastrami,

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...

, cod and

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

options.

Sauce

Francesinha sauce varies, with each establishment having its variation. The only common ingredient is beer. Most, though not all, sauces are tomato based and vary in their degree of spiciness. The color is usually red or orange.

Regional variants

'' Francesinha poveira'' is a form of francesinha distinctive to

Póvoa de Varzim Póvoa de Varzim (, ) is a Portuguese city in Northern Portugal and sub-region of Greater Porto, from its city centre. It sits in a sandy coastal plain, a cuspate foreland, halfway between the Minho and Douro rivers. In 2001, there were 63,470 ...

, north of

, created in the early 1960s. The poveira form uses different bread and sauce to form a sandwich that can be eaten by hand. ''Pica-pau'' is a breadless variant in which a steak is cut into bite-sized pieces and covered with sauce. The name ''pica-pau'' (

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions ...

) references the traditional means of consumption with small skewers or toothpicks—making the diner "peck" at the dish.

Reception

The Daily Meal The Daily Meal is a food and drinks website. It is the first site launched by Spanfeller Media Group. Jim Spanfeller is a former CEO of Forbes.com. In 2016, Spanfeller was acquired by Tribune Publishing. Content The Daily Meal produces original co ...

'' included the francesinha in their article "12 Life-Changing Sandwiches You've Never Heard Of".

References

External links

*
Francesinhas - History of the Francesinha
*
Francesinha Póveira
*
Irmandade da Francesinha
- Ranking and evaluation of Francesinhas {{sandwhich Portuguese cuisine Cheese sandwiches Culture in Porto Beef sandwiches Cheese dishes Egg dishes Ham dishes Sausage dishes Pork sandwiches