Cox: Tasty art of Portuguese

Among the many good reasons to dine at LaSalette in Sonoma, one stands out: the warm, fragrant dinner rolls Chef Manuel Azevedo sends out at the start of the meal, accompanied by a small pot of unsalted whipped butter.

One could forgo dinner entirely and just eat a long succession of these beauties. They’re yeasted, gently colored with paprika and very lightly fragrant of cinnamon, cumin and allspice.

“The recipe has been passed down in my Portuguese family for generations,” Azevedo says.

Once past the rolls, Azevedo’s kitchen, which includes a wood-burning oven put to use in many dishes, offers what he calls “cozinha nova Portuguesa,” or new Portuguese cuisine. While some dishes may be updated from the way they’re prepared in Portugal, others seem perfectly classic, like Caldo Verde ($9 ????), the country’s national soup.

Generations of Portuguese fishermen, enduring the cold of the North Atlantic, have been kept alive by this wonderful hot soup made of nourishing beef broth thickened with potato and containing kale and bits of linguica - a smoky pork sausage flavored with garlic and paprika. LaSalette’s is even better than the cup I had years ago in New Bedford, Massachusetts, at my Portuguese pal’s mom’s house. And that’s saying something.

Chourico, another Portuguese pork sausage heavily flavored with paprika, is fermented rather than stuffed fresh into casings, like the linguica. It’s on LaSalette’s menu as an appetizer called Chourico Crusted Scallops ($15 ???), where plump scallops are smeared with chourico and seared in the wood oven, then served with sweet potato puree, leek confit and molho cru, this last being a vinegary fish sauce with onions, saffron, cilantro and parsley.

The menu features 18 tapas-style tasting plates. Three items are $17, five are $26, and seven are $35. My three Items ($17 ???) included house made linguica that acquired a crispy skin from its sojourn in the wood oven, and was redolent of garlic and spices. Blood sausage called morcela was nine small rounds of soft sausage, black as night, slightly gritty, and had a concentrated meatiness from its congealed pig’s blood. Don’t let the name or concept put you off. It’s unique and delicious. The third item was two wedges of broncha (pronounced brahn-cha) cow and goat milk cheese made by the excellent cheesemakers at the Achadinha Cheese Company in Petaluma, like a mild cheddar drizzled with honey.

Pan-Roasted Mussels “Na Cataplana” ($15 ??½), was a dozen mussels in a lovely tomato-lobster fumet, mixed with bits of chourico and chopped cilantro. The cataplana is a spherical copper serving container. The fumet gets full marks, but the mussels were a little scrawny.

There is a full bar if you want to go that way, but the wine list is so interesting, stuffed with nicely-priced Portuguese wines you seldom find around these parts, that it’s fun to sample whites and reds by the half glass, as well as by the full glass or bottle. Examples: 2012 Dom Diogo Vinho Verde for $37 a bottle, 2009 Prazo de Roriz Vinho Tinto from the Douro for $42, or the big bomber, 2011 Vale do Bomfin Vinho Tinto from the Douro for $35.

For a hunger-erasing plate of great food, try the Pasta with Seared Scallops ($22 ???½). Three big fat scallops sit on a mound of house-made herb fettucini that’s interlaced with slices of roasted red bell peppers, chopped chourico and fennel pollen, all topped with a fistful of microgreens.

The lugubrious Portuguese music called fado mourned from the sound system as a happy plate of California Lamb Loin Goan Style ($26 ???) provided contrasting good cheer. Goa is a Portuguese city on the coast of India. Six tiles of medium rare lamb were contrasted with an esparregado (puree) of sweet potato, plus a medley of sweet and spicy peppers, green and yellow summer squash, collards and a red radish coin. The Goan addition is balchao sauce, a paste of vinegar, tamarind, hot peppers, cumin, black pepper, cloves, turmeric, garlic, ginger and cinnamon. It made that lamb sit up and bleat.

For dessert, I implore you to have the Chocolate Fetish ($10 ????), a wonderland of chocolate mousse, chocolate soufflé, ruby port gelee, bitter chocolate sorbet and caramelized bananas.

To sum up: Authentic Portuguese cooking raised to the level of high art.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review for the Sonoma Living section. He can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.