The origins of the sauce come from Angola and Mozambique, who both have ancient versions of chilli sauce and who customarily use chillies in their cooking. You could almost say that chilli occurs no where else in Portuguese cooking, at least only as an exotic ingredient and certainly not in any other national, fundamental dish.

In trying to crack the recipe par excellence I’ve gone to neighbours, to friends, their parents and grandparents, to restaurants and to the internet. All recipes for Molho Piri Piri have as their basis malagueta chillies, olive oil and whisky. The most common variations are using a different alcohol or vinegar, and adding lemon, garlic, bay and other spices.

I’ve tried a few now and I was happy with my own lemony brew which I shared before. But now I have turned to the master (or mistress if you prefer), Elvira, and it is her recipe which I will declare the perfect piri piri sauce.

It is just goddam delish. Not too hot, thick enough to stick, and mighty tasty. Note however that Elvira refers to her chillies as piri-piris, and most other recipes refer to malaguetas as the variety to use for this sauce, so here I have specified malaguetas too. I’ve had too many different explanations about whether malaguetas are piri piris and whether or not piri piri is just the correct translation of the english word chilli, which we spell in a variety of ways further illustrating the elasticity of language. Blah-de-blah-blah. Maybe Elvira herself will drop by and give us the final word on this piri piri / malagueta lingistic phenomenon. Ditto Isabel.

8 red malaguetas (about 8-10 cms long, finger width, but not sweet like Thai chillies)
3 green malaguetas
teaspoon of sweet paprika
zest of one lemon
clove of garlic
200ml extra virgin olive oil
pinch of rock salt
wine glass of either balsamic vinegar, port, brandy or scotch.

Even in this situation I will still only use recipes as a guide. Not because I don’t think Elvira’s is perfect, but because I know how I like it. I can never see the point in only one clove of garlic, for example. I used three. My lemon zest seemed a bit skimpy so I added some more, and I chose a nice bottle of scotch for the punch,  giving a small glass to the sauce and the rest to me. But one day I will try the balsamic version. Balsamic & chicken sounds wild and amazing.

You put all the ingredients into a blender or a food processor or a bamix thingy and grind it up until it looks good. I marinated my chicken in it for a few hours before barbequing.

Super seriously yummo, and it also makes a boring pork chop very worthy.

I was hoping to discover that Portuguese chooks are not reared in cages or fed hormornes or antibiotics. Alas it would seem that actually nor are australian meat-chickens kept in cages and the hormorne thing is just a myth. The widespread use of  antibiotics appears to be under control in the english-speaking-web-friendly world at least, (it’s not discussed in portuguese) if only in the sense that the antibiotics (used to control disease in the animals and linked to the rise of antibiotic resistent infection among humans) in poultry production are limited and controlled by legislation and overseen by industry bodies. There was a specific outbreak of antibiotic contamination in Portugal earlier this year, but it was rapidly stomped upon by conscientious EU-fearing government ministers.

Nor are the local fowl a special and unique breed, as I was anticipating.

When the world-wide-web fails me, I turn to empirical study. Let me say that the Portuguese birds do not look very impressive. Compared with your standard production line woolworths frozen inghams style jobbie they look rather puny. Apparently the average life expectancy for aussie-henny-penny is six weeks. But my favourite lecherous butcher tells me that here, felipe-frango might get as little as three weeks to make his mark on the world. So maybe that’s it. They are the suckling pigs of the chicken industry.

Tia Maria (she’s my neighbour and the fonte of all wisdom) has one word to say on the subject and it is “tempero” (seasoning). I don’t dispute the idea that the Portuguese are world leaders in chicken culinaria, but this theory leaves out the one significant control factor in the research. Me. I am the control. I’ve bought the raw product and cooked chook for myself, my way, in various locales across the globe from Titicaca to Toulouse and my Portuguese bbq chicken is by far the best I’ve ever made.

But: one remaining variable: Piri-Piri. Ingredient unique to Portugal.

So, either my cooking has overtaken my tastebuds’ expectations or Piri-Piri has magical powers. Or Portugal has the best chicken in the world. If you are working on your own theories then I would love to hear them.

My Portuguese BBQ Chicken.

I cook this over hot coals under the gargantuan chimney in my kitchen. I get favouritelecherousbutcher to butterfly the bird or halve it, or maybe quarter, whatever. I wash it, throw some salt at it and give it a few stabs with a small knife especially in the thickest flesh. The quantities of everything are, as usual, completely arbitrary, although for a whole chicken I aim for about a cup of marinade because I like to throw it around.

Lots of garlic
zest and juice of a big lemon
olive oil
piri piri – either a few shakes of the fierce Calvé sauce one, or a lot of dried stuff.

Whip this together and spoon it over the pieces after they’ve had an initial colouring on the grill. I use the “juices run clear” test for doneness, although the Portuguese chook pieces shrink slightly when they are done. Anyway I’m usually too hungry to wait for more than 45 minutes and too paranoid to cook it for less. Whatever, it’s fantastic every time.

Saudades for Yen’s. (Vietnamese-Portuguese Chicken Salad).

In Sydney, I lived above a vietnamese restaurant called Yen’s. The food was so good, inexpensive and fresh that I’d eat there about four times a week. Many friends became addicted to it too, to the point where Yen’s became not just a place to eat, but a part of my life. I named my cat Mao, for example, because it’s Vietnamese for cat  (way before I knew it sounds like bad in Portuguese).

The problem is that in central portugal it is impossible to get the right ingredients. So this is a recipe of careful substitution, and I think it’s a success because eating this helps to calm the beast when I get savage cravings, or saudades, for Yen’s.

Cooked chicken leftovers, ripped into shreds
a pile of shredded cabbage – Couve Lombarda in Portugal
a small finely sliced onion
two handfuls mint
small handful of toasted peanuts
vermicelli rice noodles, if you can find them, soaked in boiling water

Nuoc Cham (a vietnamese sauce, based on fish sauce and chilli)

Shake the ingredients in a jar and adjust according to your taste. Pour it over the salad just before eating.

equal quantities brown/yellow sugar (dissolved in equal parts hot water), fish sauce, white/rice wine vinegar.
2 small seeded chillies and 2 cloves garlic, juice of half a lime/lemon
dash of vegetable oil.

If you can’t get the fish sauce, I have used a mix of one part white or apple vinegar, 1 part oyster sauce, a dash of soy and a dash of water.