How To Make Peri Peri Marinade

Peri peri is a chili marinade with a lemon backbone, and its reputation for punishing heat is mostly a supermarket invention. Made properly it is bright and sharp first and hot second, and the heat is adjustable in a way a bottle never is. The classic use is a spatchcocked chicken, flattened so it cooks evenly and gets marinade on every surface.

Equipment

Spatchcocking needs shears or a heavy knife, and the Professional Chef Knife Set with Leather Case handles the backbone cleanly. The marinade wants a blender rather than a processor, since it should be smooth and pourable, and the Multi-Blender Kitchen System does both jobs. Basting during the cook is essential here, so keep a heat-resistant silicone basting brush to hand, and check the thigh with a digital instant-read thermometer.

Ingredients

10 to 15 African bird's eye chilies (piri piri), stemmed, or 6 to 8 red Thai chilies
1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and seeded
8 garlic cloves
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, about 3 lemons
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground

Ingredient Selection

African bird's eye chilies are the authentic ingredient and are sold dried in most African and Portuguese grocers; rehydrate them in warm water for 20 minutes before blending. Fresh red Thai chilies are the most available substitute and are close enough in heat and character.

The roasted red pepper is doing real structural work, not padding. It gives the marinade body and a sweetness that keeps the whole thing from being one-dimensionally hot, and it is why homemade peri peri tastes rounder than the bottled version. Roast it yourself over a flame if you can; jarred is acceptable. Smoked paprika, not sweet paprika, and use a decent Spanish one.

Heat control: the seeds and the white pith carry most of the capsaicin. Ten chilies with seeds removed will land moderate; fifteen with seeds in is properly hot. Start low, you can always add.

Method

Mise en Place

Prepare the chilies: If dried, soak in warm water 20 minutes and drain. If fresh, stem and decide on seeds. Wear gloves.
Roast the pepper: Char the bell pepper over a flame or under the broiler until blackened, steam it covered for 10 minutes, then peel and seed.

Blend

Blend the solids: Put the chilies, roasted pepper, garlic, lemon zest, paprika, oregano, coriander, salt, and pepper in the blender. Blend to a coarse paste.
Add the liquids: With the blender running, add the lemon juice, vinegar, and olive oil in a stream. Blend until smooth and pourable.

Simmer and Rest

Cook it briefly: Simmer the blended sauce with the bay leaf over low heat for 5 minutes. This is optional but it takes the raw edge off the garlic and helps the sauce keep considerably longer.
Cool and rest: Cool completely, discard the bay leaf, and refrigerate at least 4 hours before use.

How to Marinate

Reserve half the batch before it touches the chicken. Peri peri is as much a table sauce and basting liquid as a marinade, and you will want the clean portion for both.

Spatchcocked whole chicken: 4 to 24 hours. Overnight is best.
Chicken thighs or wings: 2 to 12 hours.
Prawns: 20 to 30 minutes.
Pork: 4 to 24 hours.
Halloumi, cauliflower, potatoes: 30 minutes to 2 hours.

Refrigerate throughout. The lemon content is high, so treat the upper end of the chicken range as a real limit rather than a suggestion.

Serving and Application

Spatchcock the bird by cutting out the backbone and pressing the breastbone flat. This is the single biggest improvement you can make to roast or grilled chicken, it cuts the cooking time by about a third and it lets breast and thigh finish at the same time.

Roast at 425°F or grill over indirect heat, basting with the reserved sauce every 10 minutes. Pull at 165°F in the thigh. Rest 10 minutes. Serve with the remaining clean sauce, lemon halves, and something starchy to absorb the fat, which is the whole reason peri peri chips exist.

Popular Variations

Extra hot: Fifteen to twenty chilies with all seeds retained, plus a tablespoon of chili flakes.
Lemon and herb: Two chilies only, double the lemon and oregano, the mild end of the range.
Mozambican style: Coconut milk stirred into the finished sauce, richer and considerably milder.

Make Ahead, Storage and Food Safety

Because it is briefly cooked, clean peri peri keeps 3 weeks refrigerated, longer than most marinades on this site, and it improves for the first week. It freezes well for 6 months.

Marinade that has held raw chicken must not be used for basting in the final minutes or served at the table without a full rolling boil first, per University of Illinois Extension. Given how much basting this recipe involves, keeping the reserved half clearly separate matters more here than almost anywhere else.

History

Piri piri, from the Ronga word for the chili, is the product of a long circuit: chilies native to the Americas carried to Africa by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century, growing wild there into the small fierce bird's eye variety, then adopted into Portuguese colonial cooking in Mozambique and Angola and carried back to Portugal. The grilled chicken dish took its familiar form in Mozambique and became a Portuguese staple, spreading globally in the late twentieth century through restaurant chains founded by Portuguese-Mozambican emigrants in South Africa. It is a genuinely three-continent recipe.

References

Related Guides

Spatchcocking and portioning are covered in How to Butcher a Chicken, and the temperature discipline that keeps a hot roast juicy is in Chicken Cooking Essentials. For the other great chili-and-allspice marinade built for the grill, see How To Make Jamaican Jerk Marinade.

Thank You

Thanks for cooking through this one. If you find real bird's eye chilies locally, I would like to know where, drop me a note through the contact page.

Chef Alan
Wine Drop Cookery
35 years, Six Four Diamond Awards