This delicious spicy chicken recipe is a flame grilled, Portuguese style, butterfly-cut spicy peri-peri grilled chicken.

Peri-peri is the Swahili word for chili peppers. This grilled peri-peri chicken is a spicy dish with roots in old Portuguese colonized Africa, primarily in Angola and Mozambique when Portuguese settlers arrived and made their homes.

The restaurant chain “Nandos” from South Africa (now with stores in various foreign countries) made the “flame grilled butterfly cut Portuguese style peri-peri chicken” famous (www.nandos.com – or in USA www.nandosperiperi.com).  If you get the chance, try it out, superb food! Nando’s also sells sauces on-line and in various speciality stores.

Peri-peri (or piri-piri) sauce is made with chili peppers, garlic, herbs, and lemon. The marinading peri-peri sauce can be made in less than 5 minutes then marinade the chicken for at least a few hours ahead of time (preferably overnight or longer if possible).

Ingredients:

• You can either buy peri-peri sauce (try nandosperiperi) – mild, medium or hot.
• Alternatively you can make the marinade by combining ingredients to your liking (suggested quantities below) birds-eye (small thin and spicy!) chili peppers, garlic, spices (salt, pepper, oregano, paprika), lemon and olive oil then blending until smooth.
• 4 tablespoon olive oil
• 4-10 bird’s eye chili – or larger less spicy chili’s depending on the desired heat
• A few garlic cloves or minced garlic
• 1 lemon (or about 1/2 cup of lemon juice)
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• Sea salt and pepper (1/2 teaspoon each)

Instructions:

1. Use any type of chicken pieces or even better, spatchcock (butterfly cut) a whole chicken.
2. Spread the marinade over the chicken and leave for a few hours – preferably overnight. Pro Tip: slash some grooves into the chicken (score it) to let the marinade penetrate and also help with the grilling. I like to use a less sharp knife so the cuts are not too precise but rather expose more of the chicken to the spices and flames.
3. The chicken is best done over a charcoal or wood fire but gas is also fine. If you don’t have access to a grill it can be done in the oven also on a tray. Grill on a low heat so as to cook through and get the outside nice and crisp. Keep some of the marinade aside from the chicken to bast it during the cooking and add after it has cooked (important – do not use marinade that raw chicken was in – it should be fresh unused marinade and heated to baste cooked chicken).