Peri-peri chicken
Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0

History

Peri-peri is the malagueta chilli that Portuguese traders carried around southern Africa, and the name comes from the Ronga word for pepper in southern Mozambique. The sauce is chilli and garlic in an oily or acidic base, often with lemon, paprika, bay and a splash of spirits. Cape Town's version arrived with Madeiran families who settled from the 1930s and with Portuguese speakers who left Angola and Mozambique after 1975, opening the corner cafes and taverns that still grill it. That is the same community that gave the city the prego roll and trinchado.

Make it at home

Yield Serves 4Hands-on 25 minTotal 4 hrDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 1.6kg, butterflied flat
  • 8 red bird's eye or malagueta chillies, stems off
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • Juice and zest of 2 lemons
  • 120ml olive oil
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 2 bay leaves, crumbled
  • 1 tbsp whisky, optional
  • 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper

Method

  1. Blend the chillies, garlic, lemon juice and zest, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, bay, whisky, salt and pepper to a loose sauce.
  2. Keep a third of the sauce back for serving. Rub the rest all over and under the skin of the butterflied chicken.
  3. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours, ideally overnight.
  4. Build a medium coal bed and set the grid high. Start the chicken skin side up for 20 minutes so the flesh cooks through without burning the fat.
  5. Turn skin side down for the last 10 to 12 minutes, moving it off any flare-up, until the skin is blistered and the juices at the thigh run clear.
  6. Rest 10 minutes, cut into quarters and spoon the reserved sauce over at the table.

Tip from the editors. Skin side up first: the marinade is oil and sugar-free but the chicken fat is not, and starting skin down means flames rather than colour.

Where to eat peri-peri chicken

Peri-peri chicken in Cape Town

Petiscos ★ 4.0

$$ PortugueseTable View

Petiscos has grilled Luso-Mozambican prawns and peri-peri chicken in Parklands near Table View, on the northern edge of Cape Town, since 2006.

OrderThe grilled lemon-butter prawns, the dish that built this no-frills room's following.

TipThe kitchen closes at 21:00 from Tuesday to Thursday, 21:30 on Friday and Saturday and 16:00 on Sunday.

Directions

Dias Tavern ★ 4.0

$$ PortugueseCity Bowl

Dias Tavern has served Portuguese trinchado, prego steaks on hot skillets and grilled chicken on Caledon Street in Cape Town's District Six since 1988.

Why locals goIt has cooked Portuguese food on Caledon Street in District Six since 1988, often with live music, on a stretch most City Bowl visitors walk straight past.

TipBook ahead for a weekend table, order the rump trinchado in its homemade sauce, and note it is closed on Sundays.

Directions

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