Piri piri: the Mozambican-Portuguese chilli technique
Mozambique, via Portugal
The piri piri (also peri peri, African bird's eye chilli) arrived in Portugal from Mozambique, Angola, and other Portuguese colonies in Africa — a tiny, intensely hot chilli that became the defining hot condiment of Portuguese cooking and later one of the most globally distributed Portuguese culinary exports through Nando's and similar chains.
The traditional technique is a marinade-and-baste method for grilled chicken: the chicken is marinated in a paste of piri piri chilli, garlic, lemon, salt, olive oil, and herbs, then grilled over charcoal and continually basted with the marinade. The heat concentration in the sauce is the variable — from mild to face-numbing, controlled by the quantity of piri piri relative to the other ingredients.