Piri Piri Chicken

During a visit to Portugal over a decade ago, I had the chance to sample one of the most delightfully hot and spicy dishes I’d yet had, Piri Piri Chicken. 

We were on a day trip out of Lisbon, in the picturesque little coastal town of Sintra, 

where we had just toured a palace, and lunch time was approaching.  We drove down to the harbor area and found this non-descript little place that friends told us was famous for their chicken.  We ordered a couple and a few beers to wash said chicken down, and waited for the chicken to arrive.

While we were waiting, I snapped a pic of the cooks preparing the chickens on skewers over a wood fire.  

I don’t have to tell you the place smelled wonderful!

When the chicken arrived it was wonderful as well.  It was an entire half chicken, marinated in the spicy piri piri sauce and grilled to perfection.  But, man was it spicy—we’re talking fire-in-the-hole hot!  But it was a tasty heat. 

I’d always remembered this meal fondly, but never got around to trying to make it until about a year ago.  I think the main reason was the lack of authentic ingredients available.  I found some sauces claiming to be piri-piri (or peri-peri) online, but when I tried them, I was disappointed—didn’t taste anything like the stuff in Portugal.  So, I decided to make my own.  The recipe that follows was tweaked over time, and it is close to what I had in Portugal, but not exact.  It is by no means authentic, as I freely bastardized various recipes I found until I got the taste I wanted, and also I lacked the main authentic ingredient—the piri piri, or bird’s eye chile pepper from Africa.  I subbed some Fresno Reds instead, and it worked out fine. 

There do seem to be literally hundreds of premade piri piri sauces available, so I may keep trying them until I find one I like.  If I do, I’ll update this recipe.  I’d like to have that authentic bird’s eye pepper in the recipe in some form, so hopefully I’ll find a good one.  In the mean time, this version is not too shabby:

Piri Piri Chicken

For the Marinade

1 Jar Roasted Red Peppers

1/2 Red Onion, Peeled and Quartered

3 Cloves Garlic

4-5 Fresno Red Peppers or Similar

1-2 Habanero Peppers

2 Tablespoons Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce

1 Tablespoon Smoked Paprika

1 Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

Juice of One Lemon

1/4 to 1/3 Cup Olive Oil

2-4 Bone-in Skin-on Chicken Breasts, or pieces of your choice.

For the Glaze

3 Tablespoons Butter

2 Tablespoons Fresh Cilantro, Chopped Fine

1 Garlic Clove, Minced

1/2 Cup of Unused Reserved Piri Piri Marinade

1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice

As I said earlier, this is a pretty bastardized version of what an authentic recipe might be—I’m just trying to get to the same flavor I tasted in Portugal, and taking another road to do so.

Anyhoo, open your jar of roasted red peppers and coarsely chop them.  

Toss ‘em into your food processor.  Quarter your half red onion; 

toss this in as well.  Coarsely chop your Fresno Reds and Habaneros 

and toss these in, along with the hot sauce, smoked paprika, Worcestershire sauce and the juice of the lemon.  

Process for a few seconds to get everything chopped up nice, then begin to add your olive oil.  Process until a chunky yet very liquid-y mixture forms. 

This should make about a little over two cups of marinade.  

Can be made up to a day ahead or more.  Will keep for several days.  

For the chicken, I'm using just two bone in skin on breasts 

since it's just the wife and I dining tonight, but the above marinade recipe makes enough for 8-10 chicken pieces, or two (or more) chicken halves.  Place your chicken in a large Ziploc bag and add a cup of the marinade.  Shake well to make sure the chicken is well-coated.  

Let the pieces marinate in the fridge for 4-6 hours.

You can use the roasted red pepper jar to store unused marinade, some of which you'll use later to make the glaze.  

When you’re ready to cook, fire up your charcoal grill for indirect cooking.  Add a piece of smoking wood to the coals for some authentic flavor and aroma.  Allow the grill to settle in at 325˚F, place the chicken on the opposite side from the charcoal...

grill for 30-45 minutes, placing the until the chicken is ruby-red in color and cooked through. 

.

While the chicken is cooking, make your glaze.  Melt butter in a small saucier or sauce pan.  Add the other glaze ingredients and heat through. 

When the chicken is done, bring it in off the grill and immediately brush with the glaze.  

Allow to sit for a few minutes for the glaze to set up.  Then serve. 

Here we served it simply with some sun dried tomato cous-cous.  

You can also serve a little of the glaze on the side as a dipping sauce. 

Until Next Time,

The Heat is on!

Chris

Ham and Cheese Tart

For December here at An Eat’n Man, I’m going to post several recipes whose photos have been sitting on the hard drive for a while—a sort of clearinghouse month this will be.  As I review the blog and my cooking record, I see I’ve got 92 posts on the blog, but over 150 dishes cooked and photographed and sitting on my computer.  I guess I’ve been more of a chef than a blogger, but oh well. 

So, coming up next month I’ll be announcing a big change to the blog.  No, I’m not turning vegan or anything like that.  I’ve just been working on some changes that will improve the appearance of the blog.  More on that in January. 

Anyhoo, this change will mean much of the photography that’s sitting around on the hard drive won’t be usable.  Not a big deal.  Some were fails anyway, and some I will redo to suit the changes to the blog.  But a few I hated to waste, so I’ve selected some of those and will be posting them throughout this month. 

First up is this awesome Ham and Cheese Tart.  I saw one of my fave chefs Bobby Flay make this on the Food Network a while back, so I had to try it.  I changed it a little bit, mainly because he used apricots in his, and I wanted mine to be strictly savory.  Here goes:

Ham and Cheese Tart

2 Sheets Puff Pastry, Thawed. 

3 to 4 Tablespoons coarse Grained Mustard

1/2 to 1 Pound Thinly Sliced Smoked Ham

8 Ounces Shredded White Cheddar

Handful Spinach Leaves

1 Egg

Cracked Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 400˚F

We’ll be using store-bought puff pastry for this.  

The box comes with two sheets, which is perfect for this recipe. 

Thaw the puff pastry according to the directions on the box, then lay it out on a well-floured surface and unfold one sheet.  

Roll it out till it has increased in size by about an inch on all sides.  Transfer it to a parchment paper lined baking sheet pan.   

Next, the mustard.  

I prefer this Maille brand Old Style Whole Grain Dijon, but use whatever you like.  Spread the mustard all over the puff pastry, 

leaving about an inch incovered all around the pastry. 

The ham:  

I prefer to use a nice, full-flavored smoked ham in the dish, but there are lots of other options as well.  Use whichever you like.  Just make sure it is sliced thin. 

Layer it on the puff pastry, again leaving an inch of the puff pastry uncovered all around. 

Crack a little black pepper on the ham.  No salt though, hams are cured and have plenty of salt already in them. 

Sprinkle your shredded white cheddar onto the ham. 

Spread some spinach leaves over the cheese. 

Now, roll out the other sheet of puff pastry to the same size as the first.  Carefully transfer it to the sheet pan, laying it over the first puff pastry exactly. 

Seal up the edges by pressing all around with a fork.  This will give it a lovely decorative edge as well. 

Beat the egg with a few drops of water and brush it into the tart.  

Using a lame or sharp knife, cut a few slits in the top of the tart to let steam escape. 

The Tart, ready to go into the oven.

Pop it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so, until the tart is puffed up and golden brown. 

Slice into six or eight slices and serve immediately. 

Enjoy!

Until Next Time,

Ham it up!

Chris

Rustic French Bread

Bread nombre trois in this Thanksgiving week of breads is what I call “rustic” French bread, for it is neither a thin baguette or a round boule, but is made with a similar dough recipe.  It’s ‘rustic’ because it is similar to some of the loaves you might see in small bakeries that dot the countryside of France.  (a shape the French might call a ‘batard,’ for it is perhaps a bastardized baguette)   This shape is also rustic to me because it’s the shape of loaf that my mom used to bake when she made “French Bread,” from the recipe in her little 1950s paperback French cookbook. 

The cookbook was folded over so that it was permanently turned to the French bread page, and thus that page was yellowed, dog-eared and foxed more so than the rest of the book.  (Mom didn’t do a whole lot of ‘other’ French cooking)

I like this loaf because it is a nice middle of the road size between small baguettes (which I love, but are difficult to make properly.  More on them in a later blog post) and full-sized sandwich bread. 

The key to making a good French loaf is to make what is known as a poolish, or starter, the night before.  This little bit of dough will undergo a long, slow fermentation all night long, developing some amazing, tangy, complex flavors that will show up in your final bread loaf.  Don’t skip this step. 

Rustic French Bread

for poolish:

5 1/4 Oz (1 1/4 Cup) Unbleached All Purpose Flour
5 1/4 Oz (2/3 Cup) 60˚F Water
1/8 Teaspoon Instant Yeast

The night before, mix dry ingredients together and then add the water and stir just to combine.  Cover and let sit overnight.  In the morning you will have something that looks like this and smells wonderfully ‘bready.’  

Note the bubbles in the poolish from the long fermentation. 

for main dough

10 1/2 Oz (2 1/2 Cups) Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 Teaspoons Instant Yeast
2 1/2 Teaspoons Salt
5 1/4 Oz (2/3 Cup)  60˚F Water
All of the Poolish

Place the flour, yeast and salt in the bowl of your mixer and stir to combine.  

Add the water to the poolish and use a fork to break the poolish dough free from its bowl.  Add it with the water to the mixing bowl of dry ingredients and run your mixer with a dough hook until the ingredients are just combined.  Let rest 20 minutes. 

After the rest, knead the dough by hand or with your mixer until it just becomes elastic and a bit cohesive.  Transfer to a lightly-oiled bowl and let rise for two hours, punching down and folding after one hour. 

After the two hour rise, move the dough to a lightly-floured surface 

and work it into a loaf shape.  

Then move it to a couche as I’ve done here and let the loaf rise for an hour or so.  

If you don’t have a couche, use a perforated ‘Italian Loaf’ pan or similar. 

Preheat oven to 500˚F with a baking stone inside. 

Using a bread lame or sharp knife, cut diagonal slits in the top of the loaf.

Transfer the loaf with a peel from your couche to the baking stone.  

Turn the oven down to 475˚F and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the loaf is golden brown and crusty.  (for a crunchier crust, add a tablespoon or two of water to the bottom of your oven when you put the loaf in.  The steam created will help to crust up the bread!)  

Take loaf out of the oven and let cool a bit before slicing. 

When cool, cut off a slice and admire the crumb.  

Not a bad effort, but a master baker can usually get a lighter, airier crumb with larger cells or holes in it.  I'm just not there yet, and can't seem to do it on a consistent basis.  Here's a photo of another loaf I made with a slacker dough, and it is a bit closer to what I'm looking for:

But, I'd actually like to see even more, larger cells like what you might find when you cut into a loaf from France or an excellent artisan bakery.   Oh well, at least mine still tastes great!   Let's slice it up...

and serve it up with plenty of real butter!

It also makes an excellent base for cheesy garlic bread.

Just sprinkle the buttered bread with mozzarella and garlic salt and zip it under the broiler for a few minutes.  Mouthwatering!


Until next time,

Here’s hoping your Thanksgiving will be a hearty one!

Chris