Aletria (Creamy Portuguese Christmas Vermicelli Pudding)
- Prep
- 10 min
- Total
- 30 min
- servings
- 8
- Calories
- 295 kcal
- Difficulty
- Easy
On Christmas Eve, one question divides Portuguese families: arroz doce or aletria? In the Minho, around Porto and in Trás-os-Montes, the answer is almost always aletria with eggs: very fine strands of pasta cooked in milk scented with lemon and cinnamon, bound at the end with egg yolks into a golden, velvety cream. It takes just 30 minutes.
Recipe
Aletria Cremosa de Natal
Traditional Christmas aletria from the north of Portugal: fine angel hair pasta cooked in milk scented with lemon peel and cinnamon, enriched with butter and egg yolks to make it velvety and creamy.
Ingredients
For the aletria
Method
Cooking the pasta and flavoring the milk
- 1In a medium pan, bring the water to the boil with the pinch of salt, the lemon peel and the cinnamon stick. Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate small pan.
- 2When the water boils, break the aletria nests with your hands into shorter strands, add them to the pan and cook for 2 minutes until the water has almost gone.
- 3Add the hot milk and the butter, stirring with a fork to separate the strands. Cook over low heat for 6 to 8 minutes.
- 4Add the sugar and stir gently for 3 minutes more until it has completely dissolved.
Binding with the yolks without curdling
- 5In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks. Take two ladles of the hot aletria milk and pour them slowly over the yolks, stirring all the time to temper them.
- 6Take the pan off the heat, wait 1 minute and pour in the tempered yolks in a thin stream, folding constantly with a wooden spoon.
- 7Put the pan back over the lowest heat for 1 to 2 minutes, without letting it boil, just until the cream thickens and turns glossy.
- 8Remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick, pour the aletria into a deep dish or small bowls, let it cool for 15 minutes and decorate with ground cinnamon.
Creamy or firm
In the north, aletria is creamy, eaten with a spoon: about 150 g of pasta to 750 ml of milk, with plenty of yolks. In the Beiras it’s made with more pasta, sometimes fewer or no yolks, and once cold it’s firm enough to cut into diamonds.
Never dry, never curdled
Start the pasta in water and only then add the milk; separate the strands with a fork as they go in so they don’t stick in a block. Take it off the heat a little looser than seems right, because it keeps absorbing liquid as it cools. And never add the yolks straight to the boiling pan: temper them first with hot milk and take the pan off the heat.
Decorating
Wait 15 to 20 minutes before dusting with cinnamon, or the steam smudges the pattern. For the traditional grid, lay strips of parchment on the surface and dust through a fine sieve. It keeps covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
