Frango piri-piri

This dish, very popular in Portugal, has a very curious name that does not have an easy explanation.

The word piri-piri would come from the word pilipili that in Swahili, an African language spoken in the east of the continent, which would be translated as "pepper".

However, it seems that the word originated in the Rongo language, spoken in southern Mozambique where the Portuguese brought a type of pepper that they had found in Brazil that they called "malagueta".

From those malaguetas another type of hot pepper evolved, the pili-pili, which is now considered a different species. In fact, it even grows wild in much of East Africa, having acclimatized very well to the subtropical strip that more or less has the same climate as its place of origin.

To make matters worse, the Portuguese gave the name malagueta to the pepper they found in Brazil because it was spicy like the melegueta or amomo pepper that they found in West Africa, but it has nothing to do with the piri-piri because even When the Portuguese arrived, there were no peppers in Africa.

So for an African the term piri-piri means pepper while for a Portuguese it has more a meaning of extremely spicy sauce made from peppers with which to season some stews and roasts.

To further complicate this mess, the Portuguese call the hot peppers malagueta but the resulting sauce piri-piri.

As malagueta are not easy to find outside of Portugal, we are going to make the hot sauce with red chilies, sometimes also called ajíes or red chillies. I reproduce a photo here so that there is no confusion whatsoever. The sauce is powerful, you are warned.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• Thighs, quarters, or even half a whole chicken, depending on the diner's hunger. If it is whole, cut half lengthwise and then make 4 parts.

For the sauce:

• 12 red chillies
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup  (200 ml) of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of sweet paprika
• 1 lemon
• Salt
• Vinegar

First we preheat the oven to 200 degrees (390 F). When it has reached the temperature we introduce the red chillies for exactly 10 minutes.

Once we have baked the chillies, we extract them and make the sauce. If you don't want to use the oven, you can use the microwave grill.

In the glass of the hand blender we put the chillies, the garlic cloves without the green germ and the olive oil. We beat to mix well.

Add the lemon juice (first one half, then we'll see if we need the second one), the paprika and half a teaspoon of salt and another of vinegar. We taste and adjust the flavor adding more lemon juice, vinegar and salt, if necessary. The lemon lessens the flavor of the oil, so you may need to add the zest from the skin as well.

With the sauce obtained we paint the chicken pieces and leave it to marinate, put in the fridge, for at least 6 hours.

After the marinating time has elapsed, we place the chicken pieces on a tray that can be baked and on it we pour the piri-piri sauce.

We preheat the oven to 200 degrees (390 F) and let it cook for about 40 minutes or until the chicken is done. From time to time, sprinkle it with the broths from the bottom of the tray.

It is served very hot - in temperature and spicy -, generally accompanied by potatoes, rice or salad.

I recommend that you also have milk or a milk drink on hand, which is the only thing that calms the itch.