Piri piri chicken

"It seems we just can’t get enough spicy grilled poultry. Popularity, however, breeds contempt" Felicity Cloake

Inspired by a Feast newsletter item in which Felicity Cloake showed us how to make Perfect piri piri chicken I hoped this would be a quickie which would meet my somewhat obsessive desire to write a post every day, as well as allowing me time to prepare for my Monday book group. It's 'my' book so I need to read it again, because I've basically forgotten most of it, and also because my first read was merely a fun read. However, it has not, of course, been as quick as I hoped, although not many side-roads have turned up to tempt me to stray from the main path. But, of course there are still a couple.

You probably know or at least know of piri piri chicken because of Nando's and/or the 49 items with piri piri or peri peri in their name, listed on the Coles website and found on their shelves. Everything from actual chicken pieces marinaded in a peri peri sauce, to rubs, sauces, salt, mayonnaise, chips ....

So a brief history of this dish, beginning with the chilli pepper that gives it it's name - piri piri or peri peri in Swhahili, meaning pepper, pepper. As you can see from this picture there are a few varieties of this particular chilli - Capsicum frutescens to give it its botanical name. They are, however all very hot - just below as hot as a chilli can get. So if you don't like heat don't make piri piri chicken - or else make it with a mild chilli - although then, of course, it won't be 'authentic'. There seems to be a mild dispute as to whether the chilli itself is a native of Mozambique or whether it was brought to Mozambique, by its Portuguese colonizers from Bolivia. I suspect the latter, but it now grows wild throughout the south eastern corner of South Africa.

Over time the Mozambicans developed this particular chicken dish which the Portuguese colonizers loved so much they took it back to Portugal where it is a top fast food. And here - well everywhere in the world today it seems - we have Nandos - the restaurants and their supermarket products. Hot, medium and mild - so not truly authentic I guess. Tasty though - I have eaten it a couple of times.

Nandos began in Johannesburg back in 1987 when two friends - Fernando Duarte (born in Portugal) and Robert Brozin, having tasted that Mozambiquan peri peri chicken in a suburb of Johannesburg, bought the cafe and set up shop. They named it Nando's after Ferdinand's first born son - a diminutive of Fernando. In 1992 it was sold to Capricorn Ventures, and in 2014 to the South African Dick Enthoven. It is still in the family and has shops all over the world - over a thousand I believe - including here in Australia since 1990.

Felicity Cloake will give you the rundown on how to make it, although, as she says, you will probably have difficulty finding piri piri chillis:

"given the heat is the important thing, so long as you stick with ripe red chillies, you can use just about any piquant variety you like." Felicity Cloake

Of course there is no one 'authentic' recipe but from my brief perusal of the options it would seem that apart from those chillis the other regular additions to the marinade are lemon juice or wine vinegar, paprika, bay leaves, garlic and maybe sugar. Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, who had fallen in love with the dish on a holiday in Portugal, lamented that:

"I saw ingredients from basil to ginger, tomatoes and sweet peppers, thyme and oregano, and then barebones recipes that were basically just chiles, garlic and bay leaves and depressing ones that called for a bottle of piri piri sauce. Where does a hungry cook begin?" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen

Well she tried out number of different things, based on what she remembered from what she and her family had eaten in Portugal and came up with her own Piri piri chicken - shown here.

"The ingredients are simple. The heat level is adjustable to taste. You can use a whole chicken or parts. You can grill or roast it. You can make it tonight." Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen

Well I won't be - we're just having a pretty simple roast chicken, but then considering David's aversion to chilli - even mild chilli - I don't think it's going to ever be made in this house.

But if you want to give it a go there are a heap of basic recipes out there. Here are just four: Chicken piri-piri - Rick Stein/Happy Foodie; Peri peri chicken - Australian Women's Weekly; Piri-piri chicken - Jose Silva/SBS; and Peri peri chicken authentic recipe - Not Quite Nigella

And just because - some outliers/variations: One pan piri piri chicken dinner - Paul Ainsworth/BBC Good Food; Nando's peri peri chicken burger - Nagi Maehashi/Recipe Tin Eats - not really Nando's she just guessed from the ingredients list on the back of one of their jars and Piri-piri prawns and harissa couscous - James Martin/BBC, because you can. of course use the same marinade on a whole lot of other things from fish, pork and other meats, to veggies and tofu.

Now back to that book.

YEARS GONE BY

August 8

2024 - Dining in the neglected suburbs

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book - artichokes and shrimps

2021 - Whose kitchen is it anyway?

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - 'Lite' and easy

2017 - Green and gold wattles - food for the soul or the body?

2016 - Sausage stew from Yugoslavia