A dish drawing on the African-Portuguese tradition of peri-peri (or piri-piri as it was known when I was a kid). It has this whole legend behind it about widows who had lost their husbands at sea. All that aside, it's one of the few Portuguese-African dishes to make it onto the international convenience dinner menu. Here's a slightly more challenging version. But only slightly...
A simple chicken dish, you can make this with large pieces of chicken per diner (e.g. a leg) or a whole chicken for 4 to 6 diners. You work it out
Similarly, you can scale up or scale down this recipe, originally created for two adult diners.
Shopping list
For the piri-piri chicken dish
1 large chicken leg per diner
4 or 5 peeled baby potatoes per dinner
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
20ml extra virgin olive oil
For the piri-piri rub
In a pestle, grind 1 tspn each of:
sugar
salt
paprika
black pepper
dried chilli
garlic powder
parsley
rapeseed oil
cayenne Pepper
mustard seed
nutmeg
Or use a credible commercially available version.
For the sauce
1 large red bell pepper, finely chopped
A large clutch of spring onions, finely sliced
I chicken cube or jelly, diluted in approx. 1 cup of boiling water
2 tbspns of olive oil
A generous amount of freshly ground black pepper
Half a very ripe mango, cubed
For the vegetable sides
1 to 2 small corn on the cob per diner
5 to 7 large sprigs of long-stemmed broccoli per diner
Cooking method
The dish
The chicken is where this dish starts and finishes. Place the chicken legs or equivalent joints on a clean plate
Grind together all the piri-piri ingredients in a pestle using a mortar. Then, using clean fingers, massage into both sides of the bird. Lay into a ceramic oven-proof dish and baste with a tiny amount of olive oil using a pastry brush. Sprinkle over some of the lemon juice and zest and allow to rest
Peel the potatoes, and push in around the chicken, which you have arranged bottom side up. Push the slices of garlic in beside the chicken and bake on a high heat, initially for about 10 mins, then turning every 5 min or so
The sauce
Wash and cube the red bell pepper
Add a generous amount of olive oil to a small saucepan, add and brown some garlic, then add the bell pepper, allowing to sauté and soften
In reverse of the usual process, only add the sliced spring onion once the bell pepper is well softened
Allow the spring onion only to soften briefly. Then add the cup of chicken stock (or the jelly + boiling water equivalent). Allow to come to the boil and stir regularly once it begins to boil
Reduce the heat, stirring to prevent from sticking, adding fresh pepper after 5 to 6 min. Once it begins to thicken into a cohesive whole, turn off the heat and allow to rest
The bits
As you keep an eye on the chicken, ensure that both it and the potatoes are roasting regularly, now turning both as demanded
Bring a pot of salted water to the boil in which you will cook the corn on the cob
I suggest cooking the long-stem broccoli in a microwave steamer for approx. 6 to 8 mins on a medium setting. But you can also use a more traditional stove-top steamer for a slightly longer time
While both are cooking, reheat the sauce and add the cubed mango. Stir into the hot liquid and encourage the sugars in the dish to reduce and combine to create the sauce
Plate the roasted chicken and potatoes; the broccoli and the sweetcorn. Dress with the pepper and the mango sauce (or decant to a sauce dish)
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