Ovos moles de Aveiro (literally, "soft eggs from Aveiro")—sometimes written as ovos-moles de Aveiro—are a local

pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...

delicacy A delicacy is usually a rare and expensive food item that is considered highly desirable, sophisticated, or peculiarly distinctive within a given culture. Irrespective of local preferences, such a label is typically pervasive throughout a r ...

from

Aveiro District Aveiro District ( pt, Distrito de Aveiro, or ) is located in the central coastal region of Portugal. The capital of the district is the city of Aveiro, which also serves as the seat of Aveiro Municipality. Aveiro District is bordered by the Po ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, made of

egg yolk Among animals which produce eggs, the yolk (; also known as the vitellus) is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg whose primary function is to supply food for the development of the embryo. Some types of egg contain no yolk, for example bec ...

s and

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

, and sometimes

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

. This mixture is then put inside small

rice paper "Rice paper" has many varieties such as rice paper made from tree bark to make drawing and writing paper or from rice flour and tapioca flour and then mixed with salt and water to produce a thin rice cake and dried to become harder and paper-like ...

casings or

wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread ...

casings similar to

communion wafer Sacramental bread, also called Communion bread, Eucharistic bread, the Lamb or simply the host ( la, hostia, lit=sacrificial victim), is the bread used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist. Along with sacramental wine, it is one of two elemen ...

s shaped into nautical shapes such as shells. In 2008, it was designated a product with

Protected Geographical Indication Three European Union schemes of geographical indications and traditional specialties, known as protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG), promote and protect nam ...

by the European Union.

History

Ovos moles are a traditional pastry of the Aveiro region. They trace their origin to the

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s who lived at various

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

s of the Dominican,

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

, and

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

orders present in the area until the early 20th century—particularly the (Monastery of Jesus). According to popular legend, the nuns used

egg white Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms arou ...

s to clean their

habits A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

, while they used the yolks to make sweets so as not to waste them, and in order to raise money for their religious communities. When the

First Portuguese Republic The First Portuguese Republic ( pt, Primeira República Portuguesa; officially: ''República Portuguesa'', Portuguese Republic) spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy ...

suppressed the convents in 1910, the nuns transferred their artisanal knowledge to educated upper-class women. Ovos moles grew in popularity when women wearing traditional Aveiro

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...

started selling them at the Aveiro train station on the

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

–

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 metropol ...

line.

Preparation

In order to make the egg yolk and sugar mixture for ovos moles, the yolks are carefully separated from the egg whites and mixed with about half their weight in sugar. The mixture is very smooth and creamy. It is not beat in a circular motion, which would result in undesirable striations, but in a simple back-and-forth or side-to-side motion with a wooden spoon. The mixture is then heated in a

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

pan until the pan's bottom is visible. The mixture is wrapped in a thin casing made of rice paper or

similar to communion wafers. These casings are shaped into various nautical forms such as boats,

clam Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve molluscs. The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the seafloor or riverbeds. Clams have two she ...

shells,

conch Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North Am ...

es, fish, and shells. Sometimes the casings are passed through

simple syrup Inverted sugar syrup, also called invert syrup, invert sugar, simple syrup, sugar syrup, sugar water, bar syrup, syrup USP, or sucrose inversion, is a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, that is made by hydrolytic sacch ...

in order to give them more consistency or turn them opaque. Shops selling ovos moles usually display them in ceramic bowls or wood barrels painted with boats and other motifs related to the

Ria de Aveiro The Aveiro lagoon (''Ria de Aveiro'') is a lagoon in Portugal. It is located on the Atlantic coast of Portugal, south of the municipality of Espinho and north of Mira (to the north of the Cape Mondego). Its average area covers approximately . It ...

Chocolate ovos moles

Ovos moles made with 63% cocoa and covered in chocolate are a traditional variation on the pastry. They essentially became extinct during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

due to chocolate's scarcity at the time. In December 2015 the Associação de Produtores de Ovos-Moles de Aveiro (Association of Producers of Aveiro Ovos-Moles) decided to reintroduce chocolate ovos moles and create a standard recipe for them. In

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, chocolate ovos moles are called ''ovos moles de chocolate'' or ''ovos moles pretos'' (literally, black soft eggs).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ovos moles Aveiro District Portuguese desserts Egg dishes Portuguese products with protected designation of origin

History

Preparation

Chocolate ovos moles

See also

References