East Africa - Piri-Piri Chicken

Piri-Piri Chicken

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Category: Africa
Forum Name: East Africa
Forum Discription: East Africa
URL: http://foodsoftheworld.ActiveBoards.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=679
Printed Date: 26 March 2026 at 19:33

Topic: Piri-Piri Chicken

Posted By: TasunkaWitko
Subject: Piri-Piri Chicken
Date Posted: 13 July 2010 at 11:29

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Piri-Piri-Chicken-359750 - Piri-Piri Chicken

Bon Appétit | July 2010

by Steven Raichlen, Francine Maroukian, and the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen

Piri-piri chicken is a spicy dish with roots in both Africa and Portugal. The dish was created in...Mozambique when Portuguese settlers arrived with chile peppers (known as piri-piri in Swahili).

Timing note: The chicken needs to marinate for at least four hours before being grilled.

Yield: Makes 2 to 4 servings

Glaze:
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons piri-piri sauce or other hot pepper sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Chicken:
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, thinly sliced
1 large shallot, peeled, quartered
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup piri-piri sauce or other hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for brushing
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken, backbone removed, opened flat
1 11 3/4 x 8 1/2 x 1 1/4-inch disposable aluminum baking pan (to catch drips)

Ingredient info: Bottled piri-piri sauce is available at specialty foods stores and online from africantradingco.com. Choose the heat level that suits you, keeping in mind that the mild version still has a nice kick to it

For glaze:

Melt butter in small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add cilantro and garlic; cook until garlic begins to brown, about 2 minutes. Add piri-piri sauce and lemon juice. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 2 minutes. DO AHEAD: Glaze can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Rewarm before using.

For chicken:

Finely chop cilantro, ginger, shallot, and garlic in processor. Add piri-piri sauce, 1/4 cup oil, lemon juice, coarse salt, and pepper; process marinade to blend.

Place chicken, skin side up, on work surface. Using palm of hand, press on breastbone to flatten chicken. Tuck wing tips under. Pour half of marinade into 11x7x2-inch glass baking dish. Open chicken like book; place skin side down in single layer in dish. Pour remaining marinade over. Cover; chill at least 4 hours or overnight, turning chicken occasionally.

Remove top rack from barbecue. Prepare barbecue (medium heat). If using 2-burner gas grill, light 1 burner. If using 3-burner gas grill, do not light center burner. If using charcoal grill, light briquettes in chimney and pour onto 1 side of lower grill rack. Place disposable aluminum pan on unlit part of grill. Place upper grill rack on barbecue; brush with oil.

Remove chicken from marinade. Arrange skin side up on grill rack above drip pan. Cover barbecue; grill until skin is browned and instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 165°F, turning often, about 40 minutes. Transfer to platter. Pour warm glaze over.

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Wiki provides this information on piri-piri:

'African Devil' (African Bird's Eye or African red devil) is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivar - cultivar of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsicum_frutescens - Capsicum frutescens , one of the sources of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_pepper - chili pepper , that grows both wild and domesticated. It is a small and extremely spicy member of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsicum - capsicum (Capsicum) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genus - genus .

The plants are usually very bushy and grow in height to 45-120 centimeters, with leaves of 4–7 cm length and 1.3-1.5 cm width. The fruits are generally tapered to a blunt point and measure up to 2.5 centimeters long. Immature pod color is green, mature color is bright red or purple. Some varieties of birdseye measure up to 175,000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale - Scoville Heat Units .

Piri piri

Piri piri, Pili pili or Peri peri is the name used in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambique - Mozambique to describe the African bird's-eye chili. The variations in spelling derive from the various pronunciations of the word in parts of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa - Africa , although "Piri piri" is the correct spelling in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_language - Portuguese .

In http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuisine_of_Mozambique&action=edit&redlink=1 - Mozambican cuisine , Piri piri is often used in preparing sauces and marinades for roast and grilled dishes, especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken - chicken and various http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish - fish . Piri piri is widely used in a vast number of dishes of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_cuisine - Portuguese cuisine .

The name comes from the Tupi language in Brazil, from where Portuguese traders introduced it to Africa along with other species of capsicum, within the wider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange - Columbian exchange

Piri-piri Sauce

This is the hot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African - East African sauce made from dried and soaked piri-piri chillies that is a staple condiment used to accompany many East African soups and stews. Though the origin of this sauce is probably Portuguese, it is now well established as a popular East African condiment and is considered an essential accompaniment to any meal in many households.^{[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed - citation needed ]} Essentially identical to Thai pepper "phrik chee fa" ("pepper points at the sky" - they grow pointing upward)

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Replies:

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 13 July 2010 at 11:55

This looks delicious and so easy to make, Ron- wow! Do you think that one could use the Tabasco peppers? Tabasco peppers also point to the sky when growing, and I have 3 plants doing real well right now. Probably not as hot as the African devil's though.

Great post and perfect time of year for it....thanks for sharing it!

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Posted By: TasunkaWitko
Date Posted: 13 July 2010 at 12:14

John - Like you, I was thinking that this looks like a very easy and tasty dish to prepare - perfectly suited for the SnP or some other pit.

I imagine the Tabascos would be fine - their Scoville rating is around 50,000 (ten times more than the eventual sauce) but this shouldn't be a problem for most people, especially when compared to the 175k rating of the African devils!

If I make it, Iwill most likely use Franks original, which seems to have an awful lot of flavour with just the right amount of heat (or lack thereof)!

Posted By: kiwi
Date Posted: 13 July 2010 at 17:39

My latest batch of awesome sauce used peri peri, I might whip some of this up next time I buy some chicken (which admittedly is not often)

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kai time!

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 13 July 2010 at 18:12

Hey Ron, the African Devil is the same (cousin, sister, brother...?) as the tabasco pepper...they are all Capsicum frutescens. According to WIKI:

/wiki/Piri_piri - Piri piri , also called African Bird's Eye or African devil
/wiki/Malagueta_pepper - Malagueta pepper
/wiki/Tabasco_pepper - Tabasco pepper , used to make /wiki/Tabasco_sauce - Tabasco sauce
/wiki/Thai_pepper - Thai pepper , also called Bird's Eye chili, Chili Padi^{[ /wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability - verification needed ]}, or Siling labuyo

According to Richard Pankhurst, C. frutescens (known as barbaré) was so important to the /wiki/Cuisine_of_Ethiopia - national cuisine of Ethiopia , at least as early as the 19th century, "that it was cultivated extensively in the warmer areas wherever the soil was suitable."^{#cite_note-0 - [1]} Although it was grown in every province, barbaré was especially extensive in /w/index.php?title=Yejju&action=edit&redlink=1 - Yejju , "which supplied much of /wiki/Shewa - Showa as well as other neighboring provinces." He singles out the upper /w/index.php?title=Golima_river&action=edit&redlink=1 - Golima river valley as being almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of this plant, where thousands of acres were devoted to the plant and it was harvested year round.^{#cite_note-1 - [2]}

So....there we go!

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