Bifana
Portugal's street sandwich: thin pork loin slices marinated in garlic, white wine and paprika, fried hard, piled into a soft papo-seco roll.
Overview
Bifanas are Portugal's national lunch sandwich, sold at every counter from Lisbon to Porto. Slices of pork loin (paper-thin, across the grain) marinate for a couple of hours in white wine, garlic, paprika, bay and black pepper, then go into a screaming-hot pan with olive oil and a knob of butter for sixty seconds a side. The marinade reduces in the pan to a salty, winey sauce, which gets ladled over a halved papo-seco roll along with the pork. Add mustard, or a squirt of piri-piri, and you've nailed it. Eaten standing at the counter with a glass of Sagres beer, or in Porto with a Super Bock.
Ingredients
Pork
- 600 g pork loin (or boneless pork shoulder, sliced 3 mm thin across the grain - about 12 slices)
Marinade
- 200 ml dry white wine (vinho verde or any dry white)
- 8 garlic cloves (crushed)
- 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
To cook
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
To serve
- 4 papo-seco rolls (or soft white rolls/baguettes)
- Mustard, piri-piri sauce, hot pepper paste
Method
Stage 1 - Slice
- Place pork in the freezer 20 minutes (firms it for easier slicing).
- Slice 3 mm thick across the grain. Each slice should be about a palm size.
- Bash slices lightly between baking paper with a meat mallet (or rolling pin) to thin them further to 2 mm - this is important for the texture.
Stage 2 - Marinate
- In a wide bowl, combine all marinade ingredients.
- Add the pork slices; toss to coat thoroughly.
- Cover; refrigerate 2-4 hours.
Stage 3 - Cook
- Heat olive oil and butter in a wide pan over high heat until shimmering.
- Lift pork slices out of the marinade (reserve the marinade); add to the hot pan in a single layer (work in 2 batches).
- Fry 1 minute per side, no longer - the slices should be coloured and cooked through but not dried out.
- Lift onto a plate; cover.
Stage 4 - Pan sauce
- Pour the reserved marinade into the hot pan.
- Bring to a boil; reduce 3-4 minutes until thickened slightly into a syrupy sauce.
Stage 5 - Combine
- Return the pork to the pan; toss in the sauce 30 seconds to coat.
Stage 6 - Assemble
- Slice the rolls in half.
- Lift 3 slices of pork (with sauce) onto each roll bottom.
- Spoon some pan-juices over the top piece of bread; the bread should be visibly soaked.
- Close the roll.
Stage 7 - Serve
- Eat immediately, standing up if possible.
- Mustard, piri-piri or hot sauce alongside.
- A glass of cold beer is mandatory.
Notes
- Thin slices, fast cook: The pork is too thin for slow cooking. High heat, fast sear, 1 minute per side - any longer and you have shoe leather.
- Soak the bread: Half the pleasure of a bifana is the marinade-soaked bread underneath. Don't be shy with the pan-juices - spoon them generously.
- Pork shoulder or loin: Loin is leaner and slightly drier. Shoulder is more flavourful but tougher. Both work; loin is more traditional in Lisbon, shoulder in the north.
Storage
- Best within 5 minutes of cooking. Bifana doesn't keep.
- The marinated pork (uncooked) refrigerates 24 hours.
- Cooked pork without bread refrigerates 2 days; reheat in a pan.
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