A traditional sort of cottage cheese but, insists a Portuguese friend, harder and much, much better, bearing omse resemblance to ricotta.
Ribatejo roughly translates from the Arabic as "above the Tagus". Ribatejo is a province of central Portugal formed from the former region of Estremadura and including most of the district of Santarém. The crops in the intensively farmed dry northern uplands include wheat, olives, citrus fruits, wine and figs, mostly produced by smallholders. The south is more sparsely populated with large farms producing wheat and olives. In the vicinity of the River Tagus, seasonal flooding facilitates the growth of rice.
