Choice of Magic - Travel, Food and Books

Easy Portuguese Caldo Verde Soup Recipe

September 23, 2025

Yesterday was the first day of autumn, and it lingers in the air. I’ve already gotten my butter croissant candles out, washed our fluffy blankets, and I am fully embracing maroon as a colour for my wardrobe. And I thought I´d kick off the season with a recipe for my favourite Portuguese soup – the caldo verde. I confess that this soup intimidated me at first. I love cooking Romanian sour soups (ciorba) and actually make some pretty tasty ones, but soups to me are such an intimate heritage of a region that I very often stay away from the really traditional ones, quietly admiring them from afar. That was the case with caldo verde until last winter, when I ventured to do one, following the recipe from Portugal The Cookbook, the same recipe book I took this Pão de Ló recipe from. I confess I have since adjusted both ingredients as well as method quite a bit and here´s my final take on the caldo verde.

Portugal

A Guide to the Azores – Part I – Flores Island

August 11, 2025

Welcome to what I hope will over time become a series of post about the 9 Açores islands. We start off with a guide to the island of Flores, which is rumoured to be the most beautiful of the lot. Flores it the second of the 9 islands that I got to properly visit (São Miguel was the first), but it is the first I properly documented for you guys. I will see whether the material I have on São Miguel is enough for me to write a post about it soon or if I have to conveniently go back for this. For now though, here´s everything you need to know for your next trip to Flores island, the Hawaii of Europe.

Portuguese Food

Traditional Portuguese Pão com Chouriço

May 23, 2025

From the series of ” traditional dishes that have always intimidated me ” comes the Portuguese pão com chouriço, a national staple . Often portrayed together with the caldo verde, another iconic local dish (coming on the blog soon), you’ll find pão com chouriço in most pastries and supermarket pastry sections. But making them at home and bringing them to a party will convey you a whole different superhero status. So let´s make some dozen pães com chouriço after a traditional recipe (the original we inspired ourselves from, with halved quantities can be found here).

Portuguese Dessert Food

Portuguese Sponge Cake Made Easy – Pão de Ló

May 13, 2025

The Portuguese pão de ló can be found in different formats depending on how much up or down the coast you go. This recipe comes from Rio Maior, north of Lisbon, in what we call the Ribatejo area. To me it seems like the easiest sponge cake variation there exists in Portugal. So I thought of sharing it here, knowing that even a child could do it. I found it in Portugal The Cookbook by Leandro Carreira and I just diminished the initial whisking time a little as I feel it was slightly too long. Otherwise the proportions and instructions are true to the original recipe in the book. To make it, keep reading. And if you’re looking for another easy cake to make, check out this walnut cake whose recipe I got from Nonna´s niece, Esther.

Switzerland

The Ultimate Guide to 72h in Geneva

January 21, 2025

This past December, in an effort to feel more Christmassy, visit a Christmas market or two, and to maybe even see some snow, we booked ourselves a long weekend in Geneva. In choosing the destination, and with the above criteria, we were looking at Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and finally settled on Geneva because none of us had ever properly visited the city, we found cheap direct flights from Lisbon to Geneva at hours that worked for us, and we found a very well priced hotel in the center of the city. All other expenses cost us an arm and a leg, but that doesn´t even matter anymore as we look back at the wonderful few days we had there. So let me tell you all about them!

Philippines

The Honeymoon Diaries Part I- Bohol, the Philippines

October 29, 2024

It feels a bit surreal to be writing this series but here we are. I am a married woman, and whether you’re here for your own honeymoon inspiration, or whether you’re visiting the Philippines just on holidays, I’m so excited to share our trip with you. We start in the island of Bohol – one of the lesser touristic islands that we visited. The island has a lot to offer, but here’s what really attracted us: firstly, the waters around Bohol are amongst the top in the world for diving, secondly, Bohol is one of the last places where you can still see tarsiers, one of the world’s smallest primates, and thirdly, the island´s Chocolate Hills are a unique geological formation that is nothing short of spectacular. So let’s jump straight in.

Vegetarian Dessert Food

Easy and Crispy Peach Crostata

August 26, 2024

Summer´s almost over and so I thought it’s about time I share this super easy peach crostata recipe on here. It’s been my go to summer dessert every time we were invited to a dinner party or I felt like just making us something sweet at home. It’s also particularly easy to make especially if you like me buy your dough from the supermarket, and I promise you everyone will love it. And while the MO reminds me a bit of this super easy elderberry pie recipe I posted a few years back, this one is even easier to make! So here we go!

Italian Food

The Most Easy and Crispy Chicken Piccata

July 31, 2024

In an effort to add more dishes containing meat to the blog, and since I’m best at cooking chicken – here’s a chicken piccata recipe that will leave you wanting for more and more. The piccata is an Italian – American dish that as far as my research goes is cooked with veal in Italy and with chicken in the US. I’ve used chicken here and made sure the fillets are quite thin so that they get really crispy. So if you are looking for a new way of cooking chicken, and like the flavour of butter, lemon and capers – give this a try.

Disclosure: my recipe is and adjusted version of this recipe from the Modern Proper.

South American Food

The Most Flavoursome Chimichurri Sauce

July 18, 2024

During an Argentine barbecue a few weeks back, I was talking to my friend Vanessa about chimichurri and how quintessentially Argentine it just is. Whether the Argentinians actually make it at home, or buy it at the store (the spices are often sold as a mixture and you’d only add oil to them), it is present in any Argentine barbecue, and just altogether a fantastic meat marinade. So here’s my attempt (after a lot of reading) to give you my chimichurri recipe. These proportions will be enough for a barbecue, but I usually double them to have some left over in a jar. And if this is not to your liking, an alternative recipe from Bon Appetite can be found here.

Portugal

The 12 Best Brunches in Lisbon

July 8, 2024

If you know me, you’ll know that brunch is my favourite dish of the day (perhaps you understood it when I published the list with my favourite brunches in Sibiu, my hometown in Romania). Call it pretentious, call it smug, but a meal that is literally designed around letting you sleep in, and letting you have champagne with your orange juice had my heart since 2011, which is the year I moved to Berlin and learned about the concept of brunch. So with all due respect to the simple yet yum Portuguese breakfasts I have these days, brunch to me has remained sacred and is something I do at least biweekly if not once a week. Hard as I tried to make a list of lesser known brunch places from all over Lisbon, by now all these places are swarmed by locals and tourists alike. Having said that, I´ve only ever reserved a table at Kefi (number 4 on the list) and managed to get into all the others on an impromptu basis. I tried recommending different dishes from each of these places, but truth be told I would most likely eat anything off their menus as they are all just finger licking good. So let´s look at the list and travel all throughout Lisbon.

Older Posts