Piri (piri) Weepu chicken

It's good to see that Dan Carter is not the be-all-and-end-all of the All Blacks. I think that deep down, we knew that he wasn't anyway.* I must say that I'm looking forward watching the finals tonight, but it's Mr H who is the most excited because he is going to the game with his brother!

When Piri Weepu stepped up to the plate and took charge of the ABs in the semi finals, my food-obsessed brain started ticking. What could I make for my foodie tribute to the All Blacks? A black and white dish? Something to do with Dan Carter? Or Piri? Yes, Piri... Piri piri Weepu Chicken!

Piri piri sauce is a delightfully tangy, tasty marinade-slash-sauce from Portugal. You might know it from Nando's... that's where I first heard of it. After a bit of a look around online, I found Emeril Lagasse's recipe on the Food network and I have tweaked it a wee bit.

The recipe calls for jalapeno and polbano chillies. Plainly put, it's a hot chilli and not so hot, large chilli. The polbano chilli is big, like a capsicum but with a bit of a kick. I used capsicum instead of polbanos and added more chilli to compensate for the capsicum's lack of heat.

I think that next time, I will check the chilli's name against a Scoville scale chart (the measurement of a chilli's spicy heat) to see how hot they are compared with jalapenos, because the chillies that I used could have had more of a punch!

Being just the beginning of spring, chillies aren't that easy to come by and if you can find any, they are expensive. These set me back about $1 each... roughly $70 per kilo. So feel free to save this recipe until the weather warms up and the prices come down!

This is an easy recipe to make, the only thing is that you need let it sit for about a week to let the flavours develop, but it would be a perfect marinade to have on hand over the bbq season.

First up, I roasted the capsicum. If you don't know how to do this, see this post on oven-roasted capsicum; or blacken them over an open flame like I did below on my new, shiny gas hob and go to step 4 in the oven-roasted method (I'm still excited about my new kitchen!).

Roughly chop up the chillies, seeds, stems and all. It seems a bit odd to include the stems but that's what Emeril said to do, so I did it. Then just cook it all in the oil for a few minutes, add the garlic, whizz it up and store it in the fridge for a week. (See the proper instructions below!)

Then cut a whole chicken into 8-10 pieces and pour the sauce all over it and let it marinate for at least a couple of hours. Scrape the marinade off before browning the chicken then pop it in the oven.

Piri piri Weepu chicken

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the piri piri sauce

1 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
6 jalapeno (hot) chillies
2 roasted red capsicum, seeds removed
1 Tbsp chilli flakes
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic

For the chicken

8-10 pieces of chicken (choose your favourite cut or chop up a whole chicken)

Directions

For the piri piri sauce

1. In a pot, heat the olive oil over a high heat
2. Roughly chop up the chillies: stems, seeds and all. Chop up the capsicum, seeds removed
3. Add the chillies, capsicum, pepper, chilli flakes, salt and pepper to the oil and cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently
4. Take off the heat and stir through the garlic
5. Allow to cool to room temperature and then blend in a food processor until smooth
6. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and push through the pulp
7. Store in a glass jar in the fridge, for a week to allow the flavours to develop.

For the chicken

1. Put the chicken pieces in a marinating dish and pour over the piri piri sauce and marinate for at least 2 hours
2. Heat the oven to 200ºC
3. Heat a frying or griddle pan over a high heat. Scrape and reserve the excess sauce off the chicken and brown in the frying pan
4. Put the browned chicken into a roasting dish and pour over all of the piri piri sauce that was used from marinating
5. Cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

* Here I am, talking like I know anything about rugby!

Latest posts