My Family is OBSESSED with This Southern African Recipe

Peri Peri in Mozambique, also known as Pili Pili in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a zesty South African marinade and sauce that is crazy delicious. Chilies, lemon, spices, ground down and used to flavor up a chicken that's then fire roasted until golden brown. We're also going to cook down some of the reserved marinade to make a super delicious sauce for one of the most flavorful dishes around you know what's up let's start with the prep sound good let's cook i'm going to be using a whole roasting chicken that weighs in between three and a half and four pounds but you could absolutely use individual chicken parts like drums thighs or breasts however it is classical to use a whole chicken we want to remove the backbone of the chicken this is also known as a flattened chicken or a spatchcock chicken Now, to do this, you can use a sharp knife or really firm, sharp kitchen shears, which is what I'm going to do. Now, when you're removing that backbone, be sure to cut around the tenderloins, leaving them a part of the chicken. We don't want those to go to waste. Then you simply cut on the other side of the backbone until it is completely removed. Now, you can remove some of these other bones that are in the inside of the cavity, but for me, I don't worry about those. So at this stage, let's flip the chicken completely over so it's breast side up and then we are going to press down on the sternum, flattening the chicken, and then rotating the drums over and facing them forward so that it looks just like this. Now what we're going to do is using a paper towel, pat the chicken dry on all sides. We're doing this so that the next few ingredients we add stick really well to it. Now once it is dry, I'm just going to transfer it over to a large bowl. Now at this stage I'm going to squeeze on the juice of one lemon which is about four to five total tablespoons. Now using your hands rub the lemon juice all over the chicken including underneath the skin. Now this process is not only going to help flavor up the chicken it's also going to help tenderize it. Then we're going to generously season it on all sides and underneath the skin with coarse salt. You'll probably use in between two and three tablespoons total. Remember you have to season up three and a half to four pounds of chicken. Once it is seasoned up with that lemon juice and salt we're just going to set it to the side for about 25 to 30 minutes and let some of those flavors infuse. And of course for the leftover backbone just hit it in the freezer until you have enough ingredients to make chicken stock. And now for that peri-peri sauce I've got fresh Fresno peppers. Now the classic chili of course would be a peri-peri chili. It's also known as a bird's eye chili or even a Thai chili. Now these chilies about 200 years ago made their way from Portugal to the two African colonies of Angola and Mozambique because Portugal could not find a way to market them and believe it or not the sauce didn't even become popularized in Portugal until the 1960s. Now of course these can be hard to find fresh in the United States so you can purchase the dried version. Now another option is that you could use red finger chilies which have a Scoville of about 40 to 60,000, which is just a tad bit higher than the 30 to 50,000 bird's eye chilies. However, you know me, I like comfortably spicy. So I'm going to use the Fresno pepper, which has a Scoville in between five and 10,000, very similar to a Serrano pepper. Now what I'm going to do is slice off the ends and then remove the pith where all that heat is. And of course, the seeds. However, again, if you love spice, you leave the pith and the seeds in there. Next up, we're just going to remove the ends from 10 whole garlic cloves. Then I have one small shallot. You could also use a white sweet or red onion. Just slice off the ends, slice it in half, and remove the peelings. Then we're going to take the garlic and the shallots and add it to a food processor along with eight seeded Fresno peppers. Next up, I'm adding the juice of two lemons, which is about five to six tablespoons in total. And since I can't find my lemon squeezer, I can only find my orange squeezer. And trust me, after 15 years in the restaurant industry, I've squeezed citrus through this thing a million times. And I promise you, cut side down renders the most amount of juice. Then I'm going to add two teaspoons of regular paprika. You could use smoked or sweet here. Then we're going to add the lid to that food processor. And we're going to process on high speed while slowly drizzling in one cup of olive oil. But of course, avocado oil would be a great substitute. Once everything is in there and the sauce is emulsified, I'm going to season it with coarse salt. We want to make sure our sauce is very flavorful, and just like I always say, try your food. Make sure it is properly seasoned. Does it need more salt? Does it need more lemon juice? You absolutely have to be the judge here. Now, if things are a bit too spicy, what you could do to chill it out is hit it with a tablespoon or two of white vinegar, or even the juice of a half lemon, or you could try a teaspoon or two of sugar, and last but not least, you could add in a half seeded red bell pepper just to help stretch it out and break down some of that spice but in the end you should have a nice thick emulsified peri-peri sauce at this point just divide the sauce in half into containers now we're just going to bring back over the chicken that's been sitting in the salt and lemon juice and we're going to add on just one of the peri-peri sauces remember we split into we'll save the other half for later and generously rub the chicken on all sides even underneath the skin and really massage the sauce into the chicken. We want this to be so, so flavorful. I can't say that enough. And because my daughter and wife really only like chicken breasts, I'm going to flip it over. And as the marinade settles down at the bottom, all the flavor will be able to soak into those chicken breasts, giving them all the goodness. Now I'm just going to cover it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator for at least four hours or all the way up to 48 hours remember the longer the marinade the more flavorful the chicken and one thing i can absolutely tell you is that nowadays no peri-peri marinade recipe is going to be the same and that's okay however i did an incredible amount of research for this recipe and come to find out the original version from the late 1800s in the town of Beira used few ingredients about two cups of lemon juice water and five to six bird's eye chilies slow cook for 10 to 12 hours on very low heat the result is a comfortably spicy slightly sweet smoky sauce now obviously as things have turned to go go go go go no one wants to take the time to do those procedures anymore which is why we're now doing the hurry up version to bring about more flavor quicker which don't get me wrong is still super delicious but if you do have time to make the original i highly recommend it for that other half of peri peri sauce we're just going to place in the refrigerator until we're ready to use it then next up when you're ready to cook the chicken let's pull it out of the refrigerator looks and smells awesome already we're just going to take the chill off it let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes but in the meantime we have plenty of other things to do like finish off some of that peri peri sauce remember that half that you save we're going to pour it into a small size sauce pot then add about a half cup of water to that little container swish it around get all that goodness out of there and add it right in there we're going to cook it over low to medium heat for about 20 to 30 minutes and help concentrate the flavors as well as take the bite out of some of the shallots and garlic now the reason you don't need to do this for the marinade is because that chicken is going to be cooked on the grill and those things will cook using those procedures. Now classically a peri-peri chicken would be cooked over an open wood flame grill. The other options would be to do it right on your smoker at at least 500 degrees Fahrenheit. If that's not an option you can lay the chicken skin side up on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and cook it in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit on a middle rack and it'll take about 45 to 50 minutes for the chicken to cook through. For me I've got a hot gas grill cranked up to 550 degrees fahrenheit what i'm going to do is lay the chicken skin side down and of course don't forget any of that leftover marinade be sure to add it on there that's just more flavor my friends now i'm going to immediately take the heat from high down to medium we want it to be about 400 to 425 degrees fahrenheit close the door on the grill and cook it for five to six minutes we're going to next come back and give the chicken a 90 degree turn Get those nice grill marks, get a nice char on there, close the door, cook it again for another five to six minutes. Then we're going to come back and give the chicken a flip. Be sure to be careful. Everything's going to be hot. And look, when grilling, the point is to get a little char on your food or else what's the point of grilling? Just put it in the oven or boil it. This isn't burnt. This is a nice little caramelization of the sauce. This is what burnt looks like, And we're nowhere near there. So once we flip it over, we are going to generously baste the chicken. And we're going to cook it for a total of 35 to 40 minutes and come back every 10 minutes and continue to baste the chicken. And once you flip that chicken over and begin that basting process, it obviously is going to need some time for it to finish cooking. But this is great timing because we can make a side dish just in case you were thinking, gosh, I wonder what this chicken goes well with. I've got you covered with a very simple Mozambican coconut rice. In a medium-sized sauce pot, we're going to add in two cups of cold water. Next, one and three quarter cup of full fat coconut milk. This is the same as a 13 and a half ounce can. We're going to turn the heat on high and bring that to a boil. In the meantime, in a medium-sized sauce pot, we are going to add in two cups of long grain rice. Turn the heat up to medium high, and we want to toast the rice for about three to four minutes while constantly moving it around. It will go from a cloudy color more to a bright white color like this, and it should not be browned anywhere on the rice. Let's go back and check out the coconut milk and water. It's boiling excellent. We're going to add it right to that pot, and it will boil up a little bit, so just be careful. Let's stir it in, bring it to a boil, turn the heat down to low, and cook it for 12 to 13 minutes. This is great timing, though, to get back outside and give our chicken another baste. gosh is this starting to look really good and the smells i cannot say it enough incredible and it's always good to be able to prepare several things at once to be good stewards of our time back inside let's check out the rice looks fantastic that little toast just goes so far into making sure our rice is fluffy and light we're going to use a fork to break up the rice and then just set it to the side uncovered for five to six minutes all righty back out on that grill our chicken should be finished up. It looks so good. A beautiful char on there. The sauce is a little caramelized. This is what I'm talking about right here. It's at about 161 to 162 degrees Fahrenheit and will continue to carry over cooking after I pull it off to get it up to that 165. Now be careful. Remove the chicken. You may need to use two spatulas. We're just going to pop it on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and let it rest for five to seven minutes and in the meantime i'm just going to grill up three to four lemons that i sliced in half cut side down for only about a minute or two what this is going to do is to help soften up the lemon so that you can extract more juice and add some nice fire roasted flavors to it so good and the smells in here alone is a big enough push to get you to make this chicken the sauce as it was cooking down i was definitely trying a little bit it was just concentrating in flavor more citrusy more zesty oh so so good it still goes back to those fundamental classic cooking techniques though making sure you're marinating for enough time getting that little char on the grill that's all flavor my friends okay at this point the rice the chicken everything's done let's plate this up now i'm just being picky here but i'm just going to transfer it over to a smaller sheet tray lined with parchment paper of course hit it with all those grilled up lemons and any extra peri peri sauce this stuff is gold then one last time i'm going to generously baste the chicken with a bunch of that sauce for a tender juicy zesty chicken then for the coconut rice just going to hit it in the bowl and then optionally i'm going to sprinkle on some toasted coconut shreds you can grab that recipe from my coconut cake if you'd like come on now let's get in this and if you've been following me for any amount of time you know that i'm not a 30 minute meal guy i'm just not i need more time than that but if you give it to me i promise you you will blow minds with how incredibly delicious your food will be and as always you can get all of my recipes at billyparisi.com in u.s customary and metric conversions and if you just love those big bowl flavors check out my peruvian chicken the aji verde sauce. Oh my gosh. So good. I've got a great recipe video. I'll see you on there.