Portugal
SEASONINGS
Portuguese seasoning traditions share many herbs with their Mediterranean neighbors. Portugal stands out in Southern Europe for its extensive use of cilantro, using it in countless traditional dishes. Parsley also dominates the herbal profile, cinnamon, vanilla, and nutmeg enhance pastries, while pepper, bay leaves, cumin, and paprika add distinctiveness to savory dishes. Onions, garlic, and tomatoes form the aromatic base, complemented by olive oil, butter, and grape-based wine vinegar.
SAUCES
While Portuguese cuisine is not known for being spice-hot, it has a unique fiery signature sauce unmatched in southern Mediterranean cooking: PIRI-PIRI (or PERI-PERI). The key ingredient, the spicy chillied travelled a long way to settle in southern Portuguese cuisine. The original chilli comes from the Americas, but it was not immediately adopted by the Portuguese. They carried chilli plants to their African colonies, mainly Mozambique and Angola, where the plants thrived and the African bird’s-eye variety developed. Portuguese settlers and local African cooks began mixing these chillies with garlic, lemon, oil and salt. The sauce later made its way back to Portugal and became part of Portuguese cuisine. The sauce is paired with flame-grilled chicken (frango piri-piri), seafood, rice, and vegetable dishes.
MOLHO VERDE – A green sauce with olive oil, garlic, parsley, and vinegar or lemon juice, commonly served with grilled fish.
VINHA D’ALHOS – A marinade-like sauce of wine vinegar, garlic, bay leaves, and paprika used for pork and other meats.
ALHADA – A garlic-olive oil emulsion sometimes enhanced with cilantro, used particularly with shellfish dishes like amêijoas à Bulhão Pato.
MOLHO DE VILÃO – a traditional sauce from the Azores, made of garlic, onions, olive oil, paprika, vinegar, and sometimes white wine. A tangy sauce paired with grilled meats, particularly pork, gives a rich, smoky flavor.
REFOGADO – Not strictly a sauce but a flavor base of sautéed onions, garlic, bay leaf, olive oil, and sometimes tomatoes that starts many Portuguese dishes.
Argentina
Argentine food runs mild — far less chili than Peru or Bolivia, less layered with dried spice than Brazil’s Bahian cooking. The Northwest, closest to the Andes, uses cumin and ground ají (capsicum pepper) more. Everywhere else — the Pampas, the coast, Patagonia — runs on salt, garlic, and parsley. Seasoning is restrained during cooking, sharper on the finished dish. A steak may reach the grill with little more than salt, then meet chimichurri or salsa criolla at the table.
Fresh aromatics dominate: onion and bell pepper cook into empanada fillings, stews, and tomato sauces. Garlic and parsley often work to flavor meat, potatoes, and sauces. Oregano goes into pizza, tomato sauce, and chimichurri. Black pepper is used everywhere. Bay leaf goes into anything cooked a long time. In the northwest, dried cumin, pimentón (dry paprika) and ají molido are more widespread. Ají molido — the most characteristically Argentine dry chile seasoning. Usually mild to moderately hot, with more warmth and pepper flavor than aggressive heat.
The Argentine flavors run around vinegar, salt and oregano, basil, bay and ají; household versions commonly add garlic, parsley and oil.
PROVENZAL — hopped garlic and parsley with no oil or vinegar, dusted onto milanesa, papas fritas, or sautéed mushrooms after cooking. Functions as a finishing seasoning.
CHIMICHURRI – a loose herb-and-vinegar sauce, usually made with parsley, garlic, oregano, vinegar, oil, salt and ají molido. It is served with grilled beef, sausages and offal, or used as a marinade. Sharp, herbal and only mildly hot in most Argentine versions.
SALSA CRIOLLA is closer to a finely chopped relish: usually tomato, onion and bell pepper dressed with vinegar, oil and salt. It is served cold with asado, achuras and especially choripán. Unlike chimichurri, its main job is freshness and crunch.
MAYONESA CASERA — homemade mayonnaise, looser and more acidic than the commercial jarred kind, standard on sandwiches de miga and alongside milanesa.
SALSA GOLF — mayonnaise beaten with ketchup. Cold, used for shrimp cocktail, fries, sometimes milanesa.
