peri peri sauce recipe

here comes a hot and fiery sauce from the portuguese cuisine – peri peri or piri piri sauce. its made from piri piri, a type of bird’s eye chili from africa.

legend has it that from africa the piri piri chilies went to portugal via the portuguese invaders. the piri piri chilies found their way into a sauce developed by the portuguese and has now become a staple in portugal. i do not know the real story…. who developed the sauce and who did not? all i know is that the sauce is REALLY AWESOME.

the sauce is so yum and spicy that we have it with everything like vegetables, rice, salads, bread. it brings some zest and spice to the dish, especially if the dish is bland and not spicy. simply love it.

my sis informed me of the peri peri sauce and i couldn’t resist making this recipe. when i heard the name peri peri, i had something of a deja vu… felt as if i have heard this name some where, some time…

i googled for peri peri and came across nando’s peri peri sauce. now the deja vu even became more strong. hmmmm…. where i have heard or seen the words “nando’s peri peri”…..  just couldn’t figure it out.

finally, again googled and found out that nandos have one of their restaurants in bangalore, india. within a flash…. i then remembered seeing their banner and restaurant in bangalore…. so this explains the deja vu

anyways, coming back to the sauce now….

usually the sauce is used as a marination for meat or sea food that is going to be roasted or grilled or fried. but like i mentioned before, but we have the peri peri sauce with our everyday vegetarian food. it is so good…

one recipe i made with the peri peri sauce was peri peri potatoes much like peri peri chicken and it was yum!!!… a pic below of the peri peri potato fries.

for the sauce, you could use even the indian red chilies… i used kashmiri red chillies and they were hot enough for all of us. the rest of the ingredients are always easily available in the kitchen pantry.

a blend of different red chilies can also be used depending on their hotness. for dry chilies you can soak them in water for 2-3 hours before blending them.

instead of lemon juice one can also use vinegar/cider vinegar or half-half quantities of lemon juice and vinegar, each. i did not add vinegar to the sauce. i only used lemon juice.

the amount of olive oil can be increased if you want a thin sauce. the more the sauce ages, the better it becomes.

for vegetarians, the sauce could be used as a marination for tofu, paneer/cottage cheese, veggies like cauliflower, potatoes, mushrooms, capsicum, aubergines and then grilled, roasted, sauted or fried. even while making a simple fried rice, 1 or 2 tsp of the peri peri sauce will make the rice spicy and yum. the sauce is a must for people who like spicy and hot food.