Olá meus amigos e amigas!

Welcome once again to Sunday Gravy!

In anticipation of my September trip to Portugal I’ve been reading up on various Portuguese recipes. I’m absolutely curious about bacalao but finding dried, preserved cod in my part of LA ain’t all that easy. We’ve got plenty of Italian, Greek and Croatian markets but Portuguese stores aren’t exactly in demand if you know what I’m saying.

[editors note: actually you’re not the editor you’re the author you dumbass] Turns out there is a Portuguese import store not too terribly far away located in Artesia. Looks like I’m gonna be hitting the freeway for that shit.

Anyway since I hadn’t found a market when I cooked today’s meal I went with option II. Today we will be making Piri Piri chicken! 

Chicken meat is known in Portugal as carne de frango yet the actual chicken itself is called a galinha which certainly makes learning this strange-ass language a whole shitload easier for my dumb ass. The fuck did I get myself into over here?

Anyway, piri piri chicken is indeed carne de frango and with the addition of the molho, “Piri Piri”, it just livens this baby right up, I can tell you.

Unfamiliar with this sauce? Then we’ll let the Wikis do the ‘splaining.

“Peri-peri sauce

Piri piri sauce
Originally produced by Portuguese in Southern Africa (there is still a debate whether Portuguese initially produced it in Angola or Mozambique), the sauce is made from peri-peri chilis (used as a seasoning or marinade). Beyond Portugal and the Southern African region (Angola, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa) where it was born the sauce is particularly well known in the United Kingdom due to the success of the South African restaurant chain Nando’s.

Recipes vary from region to region, and sometimes within the same region depending on intended use (example, cooking vs. seasoning at the table) but the key ingredients are chili and garlic, with an oily or acidic base.”

Got it?

Good.

What I discovered is that it is extremely fucking similar to a wing sauce or even a sauce like Frank’s hot sauce but with a bit more vinegar pungency and definitely more of a kick to the ass. It’s fucking delicious and by itself would make a goddamn banging wing sauce.

Before we begin allow me to offer a quick caveat here: this was version 1.0 of my ass making this dish and you know what us old programmers say…

Never trust version 1.0 of SHIT!

Lessons were indeed learned. An entire encyclopedia of upgrades, and tweaks flooded my brain which will come into play on future attempts but as I always say, I share every dish with you exactly as it happened and will tell it like it was. 

Yes, we could have done a couple of main things differently – and in the future we WILL! – but here is the dish exactly as it was made when it happened.

Don’t worry, this shit was still really fucking tasty.

Ready?

We begin.

But first look at this shit right here…

When did a chicken, a goddamn motherfucking chicken start costing 26 fucking bucks? The fuck is that?

Shit.

To the recipe! Today’s recipe came courtesy of “Bon Appetit.”

“1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, thinly sliced

1 large shallot, peeled, quartered

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1/2 cup piri-piri sauce or other hot pepper sauce

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for brushing

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken, backbone removed, opened flat

1 11 3/4 x 8 1/2 x 1 1/4-inch disposable aluminum baking pan.”

 Get that expensive ass chicken out of its bag.

Now if you’re a little faint of heart you may want to scroll down a bit because we’re going to spatchcock this bastard.

If you remember a few years back we already done spatchcocked a motherfucking chicken when we made Peruvian chicken back in the before time of 2016.

Yessir, once again we’re going to just rip that chickens goddamn spine right out of its little body.

You may want to use a knife or a pair of kitchen shears. Your call.

Ready?

Sexy!

Don’t worry, nothing will go to waste today. We’re going to take the spine, neck and various offal bits that are stuffed inside the chicken and we’re going to make a lovely stock out of them that will most definitely see some use at a later time. 

I let that stock simmer for a little over 2 hours.

What was also cool, I was already chopping up my mire poix for my weekly vegetarian soup the day I made this stock and I threw all of the extra bits of carrot ends, onion butts and even some of the fresh parsley, since I had it on hand for our recipe today, right into the goddamn pot.

The stock was kick-ass too. Nothing wasted!

We’re going to start the chicken proceedings today by making a paste (not included in the recipe above – this was my very own inspiration) that will be rubbed on the breast of the bird under the loosened skin.

Start with butter, garlic and some fresh thyme.

That’s about 4 tablespoons of butter, 5-6 cloves of minced garlic and a half teaspoon or so of minced fresh thyme. Melt the butter with the other ingredients then let the mixture cool to the point where you won’t burn your fucking hands when applying it.

Place the chicken in the disposable roasting pan and rub the concoction on the breast meat after loosening the skin over the breast a bit. 

There you go. Reach as far under the skin as you can and distribute evenly.

Yes, I am putting y’all through some fairly gnarly shit today with the removal of the chicken inner bits, the spatchcocking and then the skin loosening but nobody ever said that cooking didn’t involve a little application of gore every now and then.

Toughen up soldier! Motherfucking bird is dead anyway.

Now we build the sauce.

Back to the instructions.

“Finely chop parsley, ginger, shallot, and garlic in processor. Add piri-piri sauce, 1/4 cup oil, lemon juice, coarse salt, and pepper; process marinade to blend.”

Here’s the obligatory fresh lemon photo.

Why that’s a goddamn lemon alright!

Here’s the namesake and main ingredient for our dish today.

Mohlo is Portuguese for sauce. I actually learned that in Portuguese 1. I’m in Portuguese 3 now and still going. Current lessons include such phrases as “Desajam mais cervaja?” which translates to “Would you like more beer?” and also “Está a ir para um bar.” which translates to “She’s going to a bar.” I can actually see both of these phrases coming into play when I’m on vacation.

We resume with the festivities.

After making the sauce we give that bird a proper rub down. Also I probably should make you aware that this will marinate overnight. Two day prep alert!

Cover with foil and refrigerate.

Next day we get it ready for the oven. Bring that chicken out of the fridge and let it get close to room temperature. Starting with a cold bird will most properly fuck with the cooking time required. Take this time to re-baste the chicken fully. Covering as much of the exposed skin as possible.

That’s looking mighty damn tasty.

Cook the chicken in a 400 degree oven for about an hour, basting once and rotating the pan after the first 30 minutes.

When done we will have something like this.

This shit smells insanely delicious.

I served Greek style potatoes along with the chicken.

You may remember these from when we made Greek meatballs and Greek Potatoes.

Look I can steal this recipe from myself!

“Greek potatoes with lemon and garlic!

2 pounds of potatoes peeled and cut into wedges

6-8 cloves of garlic – minced

1/2 cup of chicken stock

1/2 cup of olive oil – that’s correct and sorry about you spraying your computer screen with coffee/water/beer

Juice of one fresh lemon

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

Sprinkle of parsley to finish

Cut them potatoes into some chunky wedges first. Grease up the baking dish you are going to use for the potatoes. Grease that fucker up REAL good, as you will see shortly.

Next add in the garlic, chicken stock, lemon and olive oil.

Then we are going to add the seasonings and herbs and shit.

Now give these a right proper tossing.

And they are oven ready.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. These will have a total cook time of 1 & 1/2 hours but we will cook them for 45 minutes prior to placing the chicken in the oven. Give a good stir when you start cooking the chicken and cook them for the final hour.

You will definitely remember the cleanup if you’ve made these yourself. And THAT’S why we lubed the fucking cooking vessel.

Let’s get this meal plated up and shit, shall we?

This was extremely tasty. A perfectly roasted and moist chicken with a lovely bit of spice and some strong herbal notes and just an all around damn good Sunday night meal.

Awhile back I watched an old Bourdain episode where he went to Mozambique? I want to say and he had piri piri chicken served to him along with a beer while he was basking on the beach. He mentioned that it was delicious and spicy.

Friends? This was not spicy. I wanted it fucking spicy and I got a roast chicken.

Tweaks are going to need to be applied in the future. First and most important tweak? This motherfucker needed some char. It missed that goddamn flame seriously. I’m thinking big time modification 1 needs to be cutting this up and grilling over a charcoal fire. Secondly: this really needs a basting sauce. Think adding barbecue sauce onto grilled chicken but with this sauce featuring the piri piri sauce. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Finally? That basting sauce needs to be leveled right the fuck up in heat. Bring those goddamn Scoville units to this bastard. Then we’re onto something.

Still this was a very delicious dinner with some roasted chicken and those killer Greek potatoes. Delicious and satisfying. While I started out looking for some tongue searing delicious chicken I ended up with a Sunday roasted bird.

Swell.

This fucker will be addressed in the future folks. You can count on that.

There you have it. Culinary experimentation at its finest. Once again, if you’re going to cook be fearless. Cook anything and cook everything. Fuck ups happen in the kitchen just like in life. As I always say you will learn a more memorable lesson from fucking shit up than getting it right the first time.

WE CAN BUILD ON THIS!

Now get your ass in the kitchen and get busy!

In the meantime enjoy the rest of your weekend, hopefully it’s nice out there and I hope to see you again next week.

Thanks for stopping by.

PEACE!