oh wow that looks amazing. Totally agree with you on the chicken we always buy free range organic in England but have to say even then the chicken is no where near as good as the Portuguese chicken we have purchased.
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
I am so happy that you have this good experience in Portugal. thanks for sharing!
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Freddietooks
Hi Nelson,
I wanted to ask how the bay leaves are incorporated into the sauce. Are they just left whole to add flavor to the other ingredients as they marry, or is actually broken up and incorporated into the sauce?
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Hello Freddie,
The bayleaves are just there to add the flavour. They should be discarded afterwards. 🙂
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Tirso Rojer
Hi Nelson, I was a bit anctious to get my sauce ready and I chopped up the bayleaves. I will let you know what happens to the chicken.
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bonnerama
Chickens are omnivores and free range chickens will happily eat worms, insect, fly larvae… even vermin.
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Trevor Rhodesia
Your recipe and chicken preparation looked delicious, but the genuinely authentic piri piri sauce has been “bastardized” by every recipe claiming to be the original! I am 70 and was raised in Rhodesia and ate chicken piri piri from a young age because it was “invented” in our next door neighbor country of Mozambique.
Portugal sent chilies to its two African colonies of Angola and Mozambique about 200 years ago because it could not find a commercial use for them, and it was in the town of Beira (Mozambique) in the late 1890s that an elderly lady managed to produce this pinnacle of salivating sauces. She only used two ingredients (3 if you include a little water), but ingeniously created a taste that transcends all others.
The ingredients? Birds eye chillies and lemon juice. The secret? Simmer the diced up chillies in the lemon juice for at least 8 hours adding just enough water to stop the mixture catching, but not enough to prevent the caramelisation of the mixture. The enzymes of both ingredients dance tenderly together in this slow process and a flavour is born that is neither viciously hot nor too acidic, but instead sweet, in a smokey way, and piquant without the bite.
Once cooked to perfection the mixture would then be blended with a mortise and pestle to a juicy paste adding water, if necessary, for consistency .
I, too, have bastardized this process, but it has not distracted from the original outcomes and flavour. I use an electric blender (juicer) to combine the chilies and lemon juice and then (barely) simmer the liquid for 8-10 hours as a short cut to grinding it to a paste.
My preference is 100 grams of chillies to 14 lemons for a stronger, hotter sauce, but it can be adjusted to half or a quarter of the chilii content to suit other tastes. I also love lots of salt on my meat, but not in the sauce.
(I am posting this on other piri piri sites to try and correct misinformation about the “original” recipe).
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Paulo
Hey Trevor,
Interesting bit of information you posted here. Do you have any more details or history on this recipe like the name of the lady who came up with this? Perhaps each country mentioned here has their own “authentic” piri piri sauce.
This was interesting enough to try but I have not grilled the chicken yet. I am actually taking the best of Nelson’s recipe and yours plus I took a couple of liberties. I don’t have access yet to fresh piri piris here in California so I substituted with Fresno chilies for my first try at this recipe. They are a milder chili.
The chopped chilies in lemon juice bit was definitely very interesting. I combined the chopped chilies and the fresh squeezed lemon juice in a crock pot and let that stew, covered for 9 hours. Interestingly, the aroma changed as it was cooking and it took the full 9 hours to get the aroma and taste that I ended up with.
After I stewed it down, I put everything in s small blender to make a nice liquidly paste. Half of the paste will be used as-is and the other half was blended with Nelson’s list of ingredients.
Where I took liberties was with blending the ingredients. I gently sautéed the garlic (and I went heavy on the garlic) in Portuguese olive oil with the bay leaves. Then I gently spooned in the Paprika. I used a little more Paprika than called for and I blended about half Spanish sweet paprika with half Spanish smoked paprika. Then I spooned in the other half of the piri piri sauce. Once mixed together, I pulled it off of the heat and put it in a jar to rest for a while until dinner time.
I am going to cook just one free range, organic chicken. First I will cut the spine out and split the breast to give me two pieces. Then I will salt them and bring them to room temperature as Nelson’s recipe calls for. Both will be grilled over quality charcoals and the different sauces will be applied to each piece toward the end of the cook.
This should make for a nice taste test comparison.
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Everett Morrison
zomg, you guys are making me drool so hard. I requested this dish for my birthday celebration on sunday because I have never tried it. Def gunna spoil the fun and make my own sauce for the chicken based on this info! As I began to study food I was always amazed a lemons ability to competely transform other flavours and I recently discovered a good source for legit thai grown birds eye peppers. WAY TO PUMPED TO COMBINE THEM!!!
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Paulo
Well, I have tried making this recipe three times now. After reading this recipe page, the comments as well as watching a couple of other great videos, I have been working on my technique and flavor profile. There is a video by “DJ BBQ in (Algarve) Portugal” on YouTube that I found useful. Another video by Rick Stein profiling the restaurant in Lisboa called A Valenciana. I would watch both videos if you can.
On my first attempt at this recipe, I cut the spite out of the frango and then split the breast to give me two equal pieces. On one piece I applied just the chilis that were stewed in lemon juice for 10 hours. On the other piece, I followed the recipe that more resembles Nelsons above plus what I saw in the above mentioned videos. I just added the chili sauce to the other ingredients mentioned. Both pieces were a hit and I was asked to prepare it this way again – to provide the variety. Honestly it was hard to decide which was *better*.
I am also cooking over proper hardwood oak (azinho). I tried a brand here in the states called Royal Oak but it is too strong for me. Now I am using a brand from El Salvador called Fogo, which is the Portuguese word for fire. This blend of oak charcoals produces a much better aroma on the food and my clothing. 🙂 It has more of a gourmet restaurant flavor to it.
The problem I am having here in California is sourcing proper piri piris. I have to grow my own or order the dried graos on the internet.
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Skokiaan
Thanks for your very interesting comparison, Paulo (and the enthusiasm Everett!).
Please do not think I am against flavour experimentation – I often do outrageous things to food on a whim (and too much beer or wine), mostly with disastrous results, but occasionally very gratifying.
I was only providing that original recipe in the interests of preserving culturally significant flavours. For instance, I went back to my birth country of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) some 20 years ago and excitedly ordered a piri piri dish in a quality restaurant and what I got was nothing more than pure birds’ eye chilli ground to a paste and applied liberally. It was a disaster and a terrible disappointment and I let the chef know! That’s how badly things go astray in a relatively short time!
Regarding more information on the history of the recipe, I can only relate that a friend of mine in Brisbane, Australia, lent me a library book some 30 years ago after a discussion we had about piri piri. It was an old, hard cover book (no dust jacket) about historical events in southern Africa and included a special narrative about the lady in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) who was credited with creating piri piri (the recipe). My memory of the chapter is a bit sketchy and I do not remember the title of the book, but I recall not only the preparation of the sauce, but some detail of the introduction of chillis to the “western world”.
When early Portuguese voyageurs returned home form South America they brought the plant with them and related how the indians used it extensively in cooking. It appears that the authorities in Portugal tried to commercialise it, but there was a lack of enthusiasm for the spice (I think of it as a herb in the raw form). The plant was sent to the colonies of Angola & Mozambique and it was in the latter that the recipe was born.
In my youth, in Rhodesia, I was of the impression that the birds’ eye chilli, that the black Africans called pili pili, was an indigenous plant and preceded the imported chilli varieties from Portugal. I am not certain as to the suitability of “Thai birds eye” peppers as I am lead to believe that Thai chillis are not particularly hot.
Glad you have taken the trouble to try the recipe, Paulo, and hope it brings you years of enjoyment as it has done for me.
Trevor Rhodesia.
Paulinho
Hey Trevor, Thanks again. I will continue to seek piri piri perfection. As mentioned, the Fresno chilis that I have access to at the moment are quite mild and even milder than the thai chili peppers. Once I get the packages of Janota brand piri piris from Portugal, I will try this recipe again and split the bird and try both techniques – just the lemon stewed piri piris on one half of the frango and then using the stew plus olive oil garlic bay leaf and paprika on the other half. I liked the little twist that they take at A Valenciana in Lisboa and followed that the last time. After washing, drying and cutting the bird, I squeezed a fresh lemon on it and gave it a rub down before the rock sea salt. Added some diced garlic to that as well.
My family back in Portugal, I think grills with whatever wood they have on the property so that will affect the flavor as well. I spotted the pine cones immediately in Nelson’s grandmother’s fire. Hopefully they ate some pine seeds first. 😉 My family uses those as well plus I think eucalyptus. Not sure they have cork wood growing there but possibly.
Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Hi Paulinho. We only use pine wood. You can use azinho like paulo, but never eucalyptus. It a very oily wood and its fumes are even a toxic, especially so close to food.
Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Fantastic Story Skokiaan!
Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Photos please! 😉
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
I actually plan to make a video using my terrible Portuguese. 🙂 I can share a link here when I finally get to that point.
Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
OMG Paulo, it is amazing what you are doing. Can you share a photo of the process. I would love to see how it looks like. Thanks
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Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hi Nelson,
Sorry. I am both “Paulo” and “Paulinho” here. From now on, I will post as “Paulo – A Dos Cunhados” since that is where my family is from.
Thanks again for the information posted here by both you and Trevor and others. I look forward to trying the recipes for a 4th time when my dried piri piri graos finally arrive through the mail.
Can you please tell me what type of paprika (colorau) that we Portuguese tend to use? Do we use mostly doce or do we use afumado? I tried afumado the first time and it was overpowering when combined with the wood smoke from the fire.
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Hi Paulo,
The world is such a small place. I know A dos Cunhados. Emanuele Siracusa, the photographer with whom I work with used to live there. 🙂 I believe in Portugal the biggest brand is margão and it not smoked (fumado) as the smoke from the charcoal is already enough. But in terms of paprika you have to hand it to the Hungarians, as they are the absolute masters in paprika. Best Nelson
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hi Nelson,
Actually, one of my first cousins in A Dos Cunhados is also named Nelson. 🙂 I have been to the north as well and know Tondela and stayed with very close family friends in Alvarim. I also know Lisbon,Torres Vedras, Lorinha, Santa Cruz, Santa Rita(a praya estana pe da casa de minha familia -sorry for my terrible Portuguese). Cas cais tambem. Tu avo tem os mismos olhos que a minha mae. Thank you again for the recipe. I will post a video soon.
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
These are the dried piri piris that I was able to source through Amazon. The cost about $10USD delivered for a 3 pack (20 grams x 3) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/827c38aa63a0835dd7ca85363cbced82f8dee3eea7bcbd93c1935c8ea7c43912.jpg
Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Hi Trevor, Sorry for the late reply and thank you so much for the touching story. I am going to try this way of making Piri Piri sauce. The way you describe it, makes me want to rush to the shop and get some chillies now.
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Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
My piri piris arrived today and I am already stewing them in lemon juice. I figured that your magic ratio of 100 grams of chillies to 14 lemons was with fresh, diced chillies. What I am trying is 1 gram dried whole piri piris per lemon. My first batch is 7 grams of dried with 7 organic lemons.
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Skokiaan
Hello Paulo & Nelson. Thanks for being in touch Nelson and I certainly hope you get much pleasure from this old and proven recipe.
Happy to hear you have finally got your dried chillis, Paulo, and I hope they work as well as the fresh item, which is what I always use. African bird’s eye chillis are sometimes difficult to find in Australian shops, so I use the small hot ones in this photo. Bird’s eye are much smaller again, but the ones I have substituted seem (from memory) to be similar in flavour and maybe hotter (I hope the photo works). https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9581bb850d3822c672e04e5fa520cd64cdbc01610c0a58c1f79ff0a561c245e.jpg
Your ratio of dried chillis to lemons ought to work as dried would be a lot lighter than fresh, but still retain their heat. I would be interested to know, though, whether the flavour is right and you should be able to pick that from the smell you identified when you made your first batch from fresh chillis. There is a noticeable change in smell at the end of the prolonged simmering.
Regarding mixing the stewed piri piri with Nelson’s recipe might actually cloak the flavours of the latter. While best used absolutely fresh, I make enough sauce to keep in the fridge for adding to other dishes from time to time, and I have noticed that the piri piri (sauce) will overide even very spicy/herby curries. The curry flavour is still there, but the stewed piri piri dominates.
Sorry about my late replies. I have a boat design I am trying to commercialise here and it takes up a lot of my energy (www.seaski.com.au).
I have tried to research the title of the original book I quoted. It looked like it would have been printed well before the 1950s so is unlikely to have been put into digital format. In my searches I came across a tv food program about a new South African restaurant that opened in Adelaide, Australia, which deals a lot with piri piri and it might help in your quest for perfection. (http://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2017/01/20/uncovering-origins-peri-peri-sauce).
I do not agree with some of the content as I spent my first working years in South Africa in the mid 1960s and the piri piri flavour was not at all evident, but chillis were used a lot, especially in Asian dishes. In Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), however, the flavour was well known as many people travelled to Beira (Mozambique) for holidays at the sea and for the renown Portuguese culinary crafts and, of course, vinho verde.
Cheers, Trevor.
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Thank you Tevor. I honestly appreciate all the emotion that is being brought up by the discussion of chillies. I remember reading on a book, that a man from Mozambique told the author that one can only tell that the piri piri sauce is good quality if the heat is only present at the back of the tongue and throat. This means that the heat has developed from its harsh stinging feel at the tip of the tongue and lips to a more mellow heat that warms you up on the inside. Best of luck to your boat endeavour. All the best Nelson
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Skokiaan
It is really good your website opens up the opportunity for enthusiasts to share their discoveries and I am pleased to have been able to contribute something that was part of my youth. Your reference to the man from Mozambique’s comments ring true for the slow simmering recipe as it definitely reduces the raw sting of the chillis to a rounded out mouth feel that seems to pull the breath our of the lungs in a pleasant way. Thank you also for the encouragement regarding my boat project. Best regards, Trevor.
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hi Trevor,
I have prepared Frango Piri Piri “Mozambique” style numerous times now (in addition to the traditional Portuguese style that I have been eating since a kid). We like both styles very much but they are indeed different.
I observed what you stated in that no other flavors get through when you use the stewed chili and lemons. Not heavy does of garlic or bay leaf. The only flavor that can be distinguished is that of the smoke/fire and I am using high quality oak lump charcoal.
The other thing that I tried since we also cook/grill Mexican cuisine is a green version of this sauce using lime juice instead of lemon juice and green chili peppers (a combination of Jalapeño plus some Serrano peppers for added heat) instead of the local hot red peppers combined with dried piri piris.
The red sauce is a little bolder taste that I prefer over the green variation that I made so I probably will not make the green variation too many more times. It is still good, though and worth a try.
Another variation that I take in the preparation is that I roast or slow cook using either my Weber kettle or my Weber Smokey Mountain (run at higher temps like 300*F) instead of throwing it over direct heat. It gives you more time to absorb the sauce in and the higher temps keep the skin on the crisper side.
As far as which we like better, the traditional Portuguese recipe or the Mozambique style recipe, both are great and we will be making both in our outdoor kitchen from now on. Both recipes will be in the rotation of other favorite grilled chicken recipes that we enjoy.
Good luck to anyone who tries Nelson’s traditional style or the Mozambique style that Trevor has shared. Both are great and worth your time to try.
I will be putting a YouTube video together soon on how I did this. I’ll share it here.
Skokiaan
Hello Paulo,
Good to hear all your news and the discoveries you have been making.
I have never done piri piri chicken in a Weber, but the mouth starts watering at the very thought of it. A match made in heaven! You have inspired me to pull out my old Weber from the back of the shed to do likewise.
I am eagerly looking forward to seeing your video. Please be sure to include a segment showing you tasting the results of the flavours as I am sure your facial expressions will tell the whole story to perfection!
Cheers, Trevor.
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hey Trevor,
Okay, I have a cook going that you can watch real time if
you see this in time. If not, you can still look at the history. I devised a
new way to slow cook the sauce using a Weber Smokey Mountain and the cast iron wok
from their Gourmet BBQ System. It is really an open top.
Here is the cook:
http://sharemycook.com/Cook/Detail/91fdb675-494a-4d46-a087-ed0c25da609d
Here is the (your) recipe that I posted):
http://sharemycook.com/Recipe/Details/ddbcc8e4-e0ae-4fc1-b038-2a0fb35fb809
Soon, I will be posting the video of this sauce plus the Portuguese style sauce on my YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNoSCZ4qiK_ZwyYJbqcCk-Q
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Trevor, I figured out your Skokiaan reference. Sorry for taking so long. I made a video of this recipe and posted it as a new comment above versus a reply. Enjoy and thanks!
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hi Trevor, I hope they work well too. The sauce is made and tomorrow is the taste test. All that I have for the moment are the dried piri piris. I can get Fresno chili peppers that look exactly like what you are holding but they are on the mild side of spicy at best, especially after the 10 hour simmer. I made my sauce in two small batches and then just combined at the end this time. In this picture is the first batch where I just pureed the dried chilis in the lemon juice and then just tossed in some whole ones. For the second batch, I took the extra step of putting the dried piri piris in a colander and poured hot water over them to wash them off as well as to hydrate them. Also for the second batch, I added in 6 diced fresno chilis to give it more of that fresh chilli pepper tanginess.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c727f661e6bfe3eeb0ca97274180cc9abf0b62e3e5e7418d64bd493de1d221b1.jpg
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Skokiaan
Paulo, you are certainly a very creative and enthusiastic cook and I look forward to hearing what your favourite “formula” is at the end of all your current efforts. I don’t wish to be a distraction from what your are doing, but I noticed that you use the crock pot with a lid. I have no idea whether this is best or not, but I have always simmered in an open top, heavy frying pan exposing the ingredients to a lot of evaporation that means adding small amounts of boiling water from time to time to prevent the mixture becoming too caramalised. I have never prepared it over an open wood fire, like you and Nelson’s mother, but that would definitely make it even more exquisite. I have done considerable cooking on camp fires and the appetite and flavours that result are sublime. And you CAN use well dried eucalyptus wood, but never camphor laurel which is know to cause death from inhaling the smoke!
Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Here is the mixture after about 7 hours – I went to 10 on both batches. I keep stirring it every now and then and it browns up nicely and the aroma changes. I am using this “crock pot” and it works well. I can put it on the high setting which is supposed to keep the contents just below boiling.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f91ce6dc9412cc0b4e033b1d5cc1451d9ee828a41f1bab7f8f6d8185d3729aa9.jpg
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Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
And the finished sauce. This is both batches combined. I gave them about 40 minutes to stew together before putting the mixture into the jar hot. it vacuum sealed itself and I let it cool. It is now in the frigorifico and ready for tomorrow evening. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b27d0eebbeec8cba39ff69268ead9df488af8588868abe97f51a6d175327a353.jpg
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Paulo
O Nelson. Muito obrigado. My family is near Torres Vedras.
Can you comment on the slices that I see some folks cutting into the skin of the raw chicken? Is this to let the chicken fat drip out and leach the piri piri oil in?
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Paulo
Regarding the colorau, does it matter if doce or afumado is used? I was thinking that since I will be cooking over quality carvaos de azihno that a smokey flavor will already be present so maybe using colorau afumado is too much here?
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Tim Elster
So glad I found this site! I’m a detribalised Brit living in Tuscany, Italy, who was first introduced to the joys of piri piri everything – chicken, lamb chops and prawns – while living on a diamond mine in what is, today, Namibia. I have little doubt Trevor Rhodesia is right, it all started in Mozambique with those huge, juicy Laurenco Marques (LM) prawns. I am going to take the best of the best and introduce my Tuscan friends to something really special this weekend. Thank you all. Tim
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Skokiaan
Hey Tim, you sure know those Lourenco Marques prawns! They were lekker sterek (to use an Afrikaans/native colloquialism). And you are right about piri piri being adaptable to a variety of dishes — I even make piri piri biltong. I hope your Tuscan friends now have a new-found respect for your culinary skills!
Trevor.
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Oscar Svärd
Hello Nelson,
I think Im in love with your grandmother !!
What a woman.
Reading this recepie and watching your fantastic pictures, makes my stomace scream with hunger.
Love and respect from Sweden.
Oscar Svärd
Ps. Hug your grannie from a Swedish Viking.
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Paulo – A Dos Cunhados
Hi Nelson,
Thank you again for posting your grandmother’s recipe. I have made it many times as well as the version that Trevor Rhodesia posted below. Here is a video I made of the Mozambique version and I plan to make a video later for my channel on the Portuguese version.
Enjoy!
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richard stein
Hi Paulo, have been reading your research with great interest and would love to view https://youtu.be/hG_Jci3daPI, but sadly it is no longer available. Is there a chance you still have it and can send it to my email address please?
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Jean-Zachary Daoust Fraser
What would one serve with this dish if one were an old Portuguese grandma. I.e. Side dishes, accompaniments?
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Hi Jean,
My grandma used to make some long grained rice with peas, where the base would be made from braised chicken bits, like the heart, and gizzards. Here is the recipe for
In a large pot add some bayleaves, a dice of chilly peper, a large onion, the chicken bits and fry everything in olive oil until the onion starts to brown. Then add garlic and fry for 1 minute, then add the rice. Fry the rice in the mixture for 1 minute. Add the water and season to taste. when the rice 5 minutes away from being done, add the peas (already defrosted). Then just simmer to finish off the rice and cook the peas. the rice should be runny/wet and it should suck the remaining moisture when already on the table.
Enjoy
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xOhaS Andrade
Adoro
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rosa dasilva
Hi Nelson vivo nos estados unidos mas ate me emocionei a ver a tua avo tambem sou da Marinha das Ondas
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Olá Rosa. Um abraço para os estados unidos e diga quando voltar á terra. pode ser que eu esteja lá.
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Tom
Hi Nelson, what a fantastic recipe- i have been travelling Portugal for 20 years and this particular recipe reminds of a small family run churrascaria in Santo Amaro, Lisbon, where they prepare the frango pretty much like your avó(open kitchen), although it is accompanied with hand cut chips, rice a tomato salad and a few pickled veggies. It goes great with a good red Borba. Her recipe goes on the bbq here in Lusaka tonight.
Tom
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Nelson | Nelsoncarvalheiro.com
Thank you so much for the kind words Tom. I will tell her about this! All the best to you
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Tom
Thanks to you and bjs to her
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[…] locales, se puede preparar de varias maneras diferentes. El más famoso, por supuesto, es el pollo piri-piri , por el cual la carne se marina en la salsa icónica antes de cocinarse. Los ingredientes varían […]
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[…] This Piri-Piri Chicken Tomato Stew is inspired by a beautiful chicken dish from Portugal. This stew has the same flavors as that dish but in a different form. I hope you like it and if you would like to have a recipe on the traditional Piri-Piri Chicken you can find it here! […]
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