🍲 Açorda alentejana (Portuguese bread soup)
Açorda alentejana is a rustic Portuguese bread soup. Garlic, salt and a big bunch of fresh coriander are pounded into a paste with olive oil, hot broth or water is poured over, and the soup is ladled onto slices of stale country bread with a poached egg on top. The bread softens in the fragrant, green-flecked broth while the yolk enriches it. It is simple, herby and warming.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g stale country bread, sliced
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 large bunch fresh coriander (about 50 g)
- 1 tsp coarse salt
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1.5 litres vegetable broth or water
- 4 eggs
Method
- Pound the garlic, coriander and salt in a mortar to a coarse paste, then stir in the olive oil. Divide it between four deep bowls.
- Bring the broth to the boil, lower the heat and poach the eggs in it for 3–4 minutes. Lift them out.
- Pour the hot broth over the paste in each bowl, add the bread slices and leave them to soak for a minute.
- Top each bowl with a poached egg and serve straight away.
How to make it lighter
- The olive oil is the main extra: 1 tbsp is about 120 kcal, and 2 tbsp for four bowls still tastes good.
- Use less bread and more broth for a lighter, more soup-like bowl.
- Keep the egg — its protein makes this simple soup more filling.
History
Açorda grew out of the frugal cooking of the Alentejo, a dry farming region in southern Portugal, where nothing was wasted and stale bread became the base of a meal. The word is often traced to the Arabic tharid, a medieval dish of bread soaked in broth — a reminder of the centuries of Moorish rule in the region.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →