Folar de Valpaços

Appearance & taste

The folar is rectangular, 15 to 40 cm long, 10 to 25 cm wide, 8 to 12 cm high and weighs 0.5 to 2 kg. Once baked, it has a thin, smooth, shiny crust from yellow to light brown. When cut, the dough is light, porous and yellowish, slightly greasy and reddish where pieces of the smoked sausages seasoned with red paprika lie. The irregularly distributed pieces of meat form a colourful mosaic.

The dough is aromatic and airy, slightly salty and greasy, and tastes of eggs and oil, with a distinct aroma of smoked meats. When eaten, the aroma of the oil and that of the smoked meats or types of meat in the filling come through. The specification attributes the very fruity flavour to the olive oil from Trás-os-Montes, which smells and tastes of fresh fruit and has sweet, green, bitter and spicy notes.

Production

The dough consists of wheat bread flour, eggs, extra virgin olive oil from Trás-os-Montes (PDO) or an oil with similar properties, and vegetable margarine and/or lard. It rises in two fermentation stages, which according to the specification distinguishes the folar from similar baked goods. It is filled with fatty pork, salted and dried, not smoked, belly bacon or belly meat, the smoked sausages Salpicão and Linguiça, smoked or air-dried ham and/or smoked pork shoulder.

Dough making, fermentation and filling take place in the municipality of Valpaços. After rising, the folar may be pre-frozen, also at the place of production. It is sold whole or in portions: at the place of production in its own boxes, for other places in wrapping paper or closed paper bags, vacuum-packed or frozen. A baked folar may only be frozen if it was not already pre-frozen.

Origin & history

The area is the municipality of Valpaços. The word folar is often used for presents or gifts and, according to the specification, means “the best”. Traditionally the folar was baked at Easter: on Easter Sunday the church collected it from the families during the Easter visit, the “compasso Pascal”. It was made from the best ingredients of the area: flour, eggs, oil of the Madural, Verdial and Cobrançosa varieties, cured pork and smoked meats from Valpaços, which were marinated in “vinha-de-alhos” and smoked over oak, pine and vine wood. Today no Easter is without it, and it is served all year round at family celebrations and official festivities.

A recipe called “Folar de Valpaços” first appears in 1959 in the “Livro de Pantagruel” by Bertha Rosa Limpo and later in other Portuguese cookbooks, for example in 1982 in “Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa” by Maria de Lurdes Modesto.