Francesinha + sauce recipe.

Note: this recipe is not completely authentic, as I’ve been meddling with it a bit. I’ll mark my own takes as they pop up. Amounts for a single person, scale it up as necessary.

• veg oil, butter, or “plain” olive oil. Do not use extra virgin olive oil for this.
• 1 hot dog sausage.
• 1 raw sausages. The ones that I use look like this, they’re called locally “Calabrian sausages”. But, basically, pick some more seasoned sausage that tastes noticeably different from the hot dog sausages.
• 1 slices of beef. Use a soft cut, the same as you’d use for a steak. Extra thin slices to get good browning.
• salt and pepper
• 1 slice of ham. The ham sold where I live is basically the Italian prosciutto cotto, but if you want something more authentic go for an Iberian style ham.
• 3 slices of bread. White, plain, but of good quality.
• 3 slices of cheese. I use mozzarella.
• 1 egg.
• francesinha sauce. Recipe provided separately.

1. Slice the sausages horizontally, across their length.
2. Season the beef with salt and pepper, and sear it alongside the raw sausages, with a bit of olive oil. Reserve.
3. [OPTIONAL] Lightly toast the ham slices and/or the hot dog sausages. Reserve.
4. Lightly toast the bread. Reserve.
5. Assemble the sandwich like this: bread, ham, beef, bread, sausages, bread, cheese. Make sure that the cheese covers the sides of the sandwich, not just the top.
6. Put it in the oven until the cheese melts. I use 225°C for that.
7. While the sandwich is in the oven, fry the eggs, in the same pan that you fried the beef. Soft yolk, hard yolk, up to your tastes.
8. Take the sandwich off the oven, place an egg over it, drizzle a generous amount of boiling hot francesinha sauce, and enjoy.

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Now for the sauce. It yields something like half litre of sauce, this should be enough for plenty francesinhas. Leftover sauce can be frozen or used elsewhere, it’s a fairly good sauce for meats.

• one small clove of garlic. (skip it if going authentic.)
• 2tbsp of butter.
• A 350ml can of beer.
• oregano. (skip it if going authentic)
• 50ml of some spirit drink. IIRC the original recipe asks for Port wine; I use graspa because it’s cheaper and good enough. Cognac could also work, just don’t use something like vodka as it won’t impart any flavour.
• 100ml of beef stock. I use homemade stock, but you could swap it with one or two bouillons if you want.
• red pepper sauce. Use any flavourful sauce of your choice and heat preference; the recipe originally asks for piri-piri = malagueta, I use ají = dedo-de-moça as I make the sauce at home.
• 6tbsp of tomato paste.
• 2tbsp cornstarch.
• 200ml of whole milk.
• salt.

1. Mince the garlic as small as reasonably possible and brown it lightly in the butter. Then add every other ingredient except cornstarch, milk, and salt.
2. Reduce the sauce by half volume. Stir occasionally just so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
3. Mix the cornstarch with the cold milk into a slurry, and add it to the sauce. Then bring it back to a boil, and let it thicken up.
4. Add the salt by taste. I’m listing this as the last step because the amount of salt depends on how much you reduced the sauce.

Note: it’s generally a good idea to leave the sauce ready before you start the sandwiches, so you can simply heat it up as necessary. Also feel free to meddle with the amounts of cornstarch if you like it runnier or thicker, just make sure to never pour cornstarch directly into the sauce (hot cornstarch clumps itself up.)