Piri-Piri Chicken

A spicy, adventurous whole chicken feast with a hot zesty sauce. Perfect for that pre football get together. The recipe is inspired by an African dish with Portuguese origins that is now more famously known as Nando's chicken.

This meal will take some time to prepare, but the results are worth it in my opinion for the authentic taste and satisfaction on people's faces that I get when they share the meal with me.

Ingredients

2 red peppers

1 yellow pepper

1 red onion, unpeeled

4 to 6 garlic cloves

4 to 6 chillies

Juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon (or 45 ml lemon juice)

15 g smoked paprika

5 g dried oregano

2.5 g dried rosemary

125 ml olive oil (regular olive oil, not extra virgin) or sunflower oil

30 ml white wine vinegar

5 g sea salt

Chicken

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (approximately 1.25 to 1.5 kg)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

To Serve

Handful of freshly chopped parsley

Lemon wedges (for squeeze the juice over the chicken)

Extra piri-piri sauce (optional)

Method

1. Prepare the Marinade

Prepare the marinade at least 5 hours before cooking.

Lightly oil a baking tray with olive or sunflower oil.

Using a pastry brush, lightly coat the peppers, onion and garlic cloves with oil.

Place them on the baking tray and roast for 20 to 25 minutes at 180 degrees. Do not fret if the pepper skin starts to blacken, the more roasted the skin is, the easier it will be to peel. I prefer to place the garlic in the tray when there is roughly 10 minutes of roasting left.

Transfer the hot peppers to the zip lock bags and seal immediately. Leave them to steam until cool enough to handle. Roughly half an hour I have found.

Peel the skins from the peppers.

Peel the onion and garlic skins off.

Place the roasted peppers, onion, garlic and the remaining marinade ingredients into a food processor. Blend until smooth, then season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

2. Prepare the Chicken

Remove the backbone from the chicken.

Turn the chicken over and press firmly on the breast until the breastbone cracks, allowing the chicken to lie flat (spatchcock).

Make several diagonal cuts approximately 2.5 cm deep into the flesh and skin of the chicken breasts and legs.

Season the chicken generously with salt and black pepper. I rub the seasoning into the chicken. My wife likes to watch me whilst I do this. I have no idea why...

Spread half of the marinade into a lidded container and place the chicken flesh side down into it.

Pour the remaining marinade over the top of the chicken, ensuring it is evenly coated.

Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours.

3. Cook the Chicken

Preheat the oven to 220°C using the grill setting.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator.

Place the chicken in a roasting tin and pour any remaining marinade over it.

Roast for 15 minutes until the skin becomes crispy and slightly singed.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C and continue roasting for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked. Check whether the thickest part of the breast or thigh reaches 75°C using a meat thermometer.

To Serve

Carve the chicken into portions and sprinkle with the chopped parsley.

Serve with lemon wedges and additional piri-piri sauce if desired

Take roughly 6 chicken thighs and season them. Place them in a roasting tin skin up. Add around 50g of butter as slices on top of the chicken thighs and on top of the butter you add thinly sliced lemons. Then add the onion wedges of around 2 red or brown onions to the roasting tin as well as 6 bashed garlic cloves. Place around 500 grams worth of asparagus on top of your mixture as well as 100g of frozen peas and then season. I add about a tablespoon’s worth of oregano over the top and finally a 100ml of chicken stock.

Drizzle 30ml of olive oil on top of mostly the vegetables and cover your roasting tin with tin foil. Roast for 30 minutes, remove the foil and then roast for another 20 minutes. If needed, grill the roast until the chicken skin is golden and crispy.

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Take roughly 6 chicken thighs and season them. Place them in a roasting tin skin up. Add around 50g of butter as slices on top of the chicken thighs and on top of the butter you add thinly sliced lemons. Then add the onion wedges of around 2 red or brown onions to the roasting tin as well as 6 bashed garlic cloves. Place around 500 grams worth of asparagus on top of your mixture as well as 100g of frozen peas and then season. I add about a tablespoon’s worth of oregano over the top and finally 100ml of chicken stock.

Drizzle 30ml of olive oil on top of mostly the vegetables and cover your roasting tin with tin foil. Roast for 30 minutes, remove the foil and then roast for another 20 minutes. If needed, grill the roast until the chicken skin is golden and crispy.

Two banana shallots, chopped finely, fried over low heat with 15ml of olive oil for 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Two finely chopped cloves of garlic are then added along with a handful of dried sage. This is fried with the shallots for 2 more minutes. The shallot mixture gets taken off the heat and put aside to cool. I then add thin slices of one gala and 1 golden delicious apple to the pan, another 15ml of olive oil and fry on each side for approximately 2 minutes until it just starts to caramelise. This too is then gets removed, but with the oil left behind to fry the burgers in.

700g of high quality pork sausage meat, 45g of breadcrumbs, 1 large whisked egg and the shallot mixture are then thoroughly mixed by hand. Divide in 8 equal portions of around 100g and flatten into burgers to around 2cm in thickness. Turn the heat of the pan to medium-high and fry each burger around 2-3 minutes per side or until the burgers reach an internal temperature of 70 degrees Celsius. I then take the burger rolls and toast them in the leftover oil of the pan.

The burgers are served on rocket leaves and topped off with plum chutney.

Fragrant Middle Eastern Za’atar and Spices are mixed with lemon juice,garlic and olive oil to make a thick paste that is mixed in with chicken thighs, potatoes and red onions. Baked at 200 degees C and rounded of with chopped parsley.

I enjoy this cold on a hot weekend.

I use two chopped shallots and gently fry them in olive oil over a low heat until soft. I then add chopped garlic and dried sage, and cook them for another two minutes until fragrant. Once the mixture has cooled, I combine it with sausage meat, grated Golden Delicious apple, chopped Golden Delicious apple, breadcrumbs, and one beaten egg.

I place the sausage mixture in the centre of a sheet of puff pastry and spread it evenly along the middle. Then I cut diagonal strips along both long sides of the pastry. I fold the strips alternately over the sausage mixture, crossing them over to create a braided top. The ends are sealed with pastry and any excess is trimmed away.

I brush the pastry with egg wash, sprinkle over fennel seeds, and bake it at 180°C for about 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the sausage meat reaches an internal temperature of 70°C.

First I fry some chopped onions with a pinch of dried sage and then add the chopped sausages to brown rounding it off with some chopped garlic for the last few minutes. Cabernet sauvignon, grated carrot and vegetable stock and tomato purée is added. The sausage ragu is left to simmer and reduce over 15 minutes. Whilst the ragu is simmering the rigatoni is prepared and spinach added to wilt at the end.

Next, half of the rigatoni and spinach mix is added to an oven proof dish then layered with the ragu. The rest of the rigatoni and spinach mix is then added on top of the ragu.

Finally, the home made white sauce and grated mature cheese tops of the dish and put in the oven until the cheese starts browning.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I love turning to an old favourite: menemen. Onions and peppers are fried until tender, with a generous kick of heat from a handful of chillies. Chopped tomatoes are then stirred in and left to simmer until rich and thick, before being seasoned simply with salt and pepper. Four little pockets are made in the mixture, the eggs are cracked in, and everything is gently cooked until just set. A scattering of parsley adds a final touch of colour and freshness. I serve mine with garlic yoghurt and freshly baked challah.