Piri Piri Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken (adjust quantity as needed)
• Mannys Chicken Marinade
• Mannys One for All sauce  

Method:

1 – Using a medium size sharp knife and a chopping board, cut the little pimple on the chicken’s bottom. Turn the chicken breast up and trim away the excess fat at the back and front of the chicken – don’t cut too much fat off as the fat also adds flavour and we are going to grill the, so the fat will melt away.

2 – Hold both wings with your left hand, insert the knife through the neck hole and with an outward motion cut the chicken through the breast all the way down (hold the chicken and knife firmly or one or even both will fly away). Hold the chicken with both hands, breast facing you. Insert your two thumbs inside the breast cut and separate the two half breasts to open the chicken flat. You can break the ribs with your thumbs if you need to. Turn the chicken flat on the board, back facing up. Hold wing closest to you with your left and make a small cut on the base of the wing, pull it forward until flat on the board. Do the same with the other wing. You can punch the back of the chicken to get it nice a flat. 

 Now is time to marinade:

1 – Lay the chicken in a tray and marinate on both sides with the marinade. Just use enough marinade to coat the chicken on both sides. You can do this with your fingers or better still, just use a brush.

2 – Each 250ml bottle of marinade, will be sufficient to marinade 3 Kg of chicken, so for 1Kg chicken just use 1/3 of the content.

3 – Let the chicken rest in the fridge, marinating for at least 24 hours – a bit longer if you have the time, up to 72 hours great. 

Cooking:

A Piri Piri chicken has to be cooked on the BBQ, but if you feel a bit lazy to fire up the BBQ, you can Grill in the oven or even Roast.     

1 – BBQ. Fire up your BBQ on medium to low heat until hot. Spread some cooking oil on the grid to avoid sticking. Place your chicken on the grill (back facing down) and let grill for about 10 minutes. You should rotate the chicken a couple of times by now. The reason is that the heat is not even  across the grill.

2 – Now turn the chicken over and let grill for another 10 minutes, following the same procedure as before. If you still have some marinade left in the tray, baste it on the chicken, this will add some more flavour. After the 10 minutes, turn the chicken over again and baste the rest of the leftover marinade from the tray if you still have some. Let grill for another 7/8 minutes. Turn then chicken over again and cook for another 6/7 minutes. If your chicken is not too big and the heat is on medium, the chicken should now be cooked. It’s important to look at the colour of the chicken in this last step, making sure not to overcook or burn.

You can turn the chicken over as many times as you like, the more you turn the juicier and tender the meat will be.

You should now be proud of yourself,  you’ve just made the best chicken in the world! 

Now, the magic touch:

For those that don’t settle for ‘best’ follow this last step:

1. With a basting brush, baste the Mannys ‘One for All’ sauce on both sides of the chicken and serve.
2. If you don’t have the Mannys ‘One for All’, you can mix 2 tablespoon of olive oil, juice of ½ lemon, 1tsp of water and 1 teaspoon of paprika. Mix well and baste both sides.
3. If you enjoy a nice and spicy chicken, then you’re going to need Mannys Piri Piri sauce. 

PS: If you want to avoid the trimming and cutting, chicken pieces are a whole lot easier, but the above is the ‘original Piri Piri chicken’