Pastel de feijão

Pastel de feijão, plural pastéis de feijão, is a small Portuguese sweet pastry from the town of Torres Vedras. A very thin dough, kneaded with just enough water and spread out, forms a crisp shell that is filled with a jam made from navy beans, sugar, eggs and almonds. Each pastry is about seven centimetres across, and they are sold individually in pastry shops or packed six to a box in cellophane. Sources describe it as first introduced in Torres Vedras in the early twentieth century, possibly earlier, because nuns originally made it, and it was one of 38 characteristic sweets of Portuguese localities chosen for the Portuguese ethnographic exhibition of 1896. Brazil has a salty relative filled with black beans, popular in Rio de Janeiro and served with feijoada.