🇵🇹 Portugal · Alentejo
AçordaPortuguese bread soup
An Alentejo bread soup assembled in the bowl: sliced day-old bread, garlic pounded with salt and fresh coriander (or pennyroyal) and olive oil, moistened with boiling water, usually with a poached egg or fish on top.
Origin and history
According to the food historian Alfredo Saramago, soups of herbs, garlic, olive oil, bread and hot water go back to before Roman times, and it was during the centuries of Muslim rule between the Tagus and the Guadiana that the dish was fixed; its name comes from the Arabic ath-thurda, bread soaked in broth. It stayed the everyday meal of Alentejo workers, made with the week's hardened bread. Portel holds a Congresso das Açordas, and açorda alentejana has topped TasteAtlas's ranking of bread soups.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 20 min
- Hands-on
- 15 min
Ingredients
- 1.5 l6 1/3 cups water
- 4 very fresh eggs
- 1 large bunch fresh coriander (coentros), or poejo (pennyroyal), or a mix, leaves and tender stems, about 40 g (1 1/2 oz)
- 2-4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 tbsp coarse sea salt
- 60 ml4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, Alentejo oil if you can get it
- 400 g14 oz day-old pão alentejano (dense Alentejo wheat bread) or other firm country bread, one or two days old, in slices or chunks
Method
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1. Bring the water to the boil in a wide pan, then lower the heat until it barely simmers.
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2. Poach the eggs one or two at a time for 3-4 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still runny. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and keep them warm. Bring the water back to a full boil.
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3. Meanwhile, pound the garlic, coarse salt and coriander (or poejo) in a mortar until they form a rough green paste.
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4. Scrape the paste into a tureen or a large bowl and stir in the olive oil.
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5. Pour the boiling egg water over the paste and stir. Taste the broth: it should be well salted and strongly scented with herb and garlic.
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6. Put the bread in the bowls (or into the tureen) and ladle the hot broth over it. Leave it for a minute so the bread drinks the broth but keeps its shape.
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7. Set a poached egg on each bowl and serve straight away.
Notes
- Alentejo açorda is assembled, not cooked: the bread is soaked at the table, never boiled or mashed. The mashed bread dishes called açorda in Lisbon and on the coast (açorda de marisco and others) are what the Alentejo calls migas.
- Bread matters most. Use a dense wheat loaf with a firm crumb, at least a day old. Soft sandwich bread falls apart.
- Poejo (pennyroyal) gives the minty sopa de poejos, an açorda in its own right; many cooks mix it with coriander.
- Richer açordas add salt cod: soak it, poach it in the water before the eggs, then flake it over the bread. Hake, clams or fish from the river are also used, and some families serve olives or fresh figs alongside in season.
- Some cooks add a splash of vinegar to the broth, or to the water for poaching the eggs.
- Make it just before eating. Açorda does not wait.
Adapted from Universidade de Évora / Food-Med, "Como comer de forma saudável com cozinha tradicional alentejana" (Açorda alentejana), Câmara Municipal de Évora, "Açordas, sopas de pão e migas" (Galopim de Carvalho), and Alfredo Saramago, Para uma História da Alimentação no Alentejo.
At the festivals
Served at 2 festivals in Portugal.
Earlier editions
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May 02, 2026
🇵🇹 Portalegre, Portugal
Sopas do Alentejo
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May 12, 2018
🇵🇹 Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal
16.º Festival das Sopas
On the menu as Sopa de Poejos com Ovos
By MASCAL (Ladoeiro)