Spicy Portugese Chicken

My friend David came over for lunch last Tuesday and while it was lovely and sunny for some of the day, the rest of the time it was disgusting and grey and rainy because blurgh, so this seemed like the perfect thing to cook. It’s a recipe from Feasting at Home, but with the chillies I had knocking around the kitchen. While it uses four chillies it’s not SUPER hot, more warming. If you want it hotter replace the weaker chillies with hotter ones, or put the marinade under the skin rather than just on top.

You can buy dried chillies almost anywhere, mine were just things I grabbed in Waitrose ages ago, and haven’t known what to do with.

You’ll need:

• A chicken, because without that you’ll be a bit stuck
• 1 dried ancho chilli
• 1 dried habanero chilli
• 1 dried cascabel chilli
• 1 dried chipotle chilli (the smokiness of this is gorgeous)
• 60ml olive oil
• 60ml red wine vinegar
• 6 cloves of garlic
• A teaspoon of dried coriander
• 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put the chillies in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes to rehydrate. Let them cool slightly so you can handle them.

Finely chop or mince the garlic and chop up the chillies and bung everything other than the chicken (duh) into a food processor.

Blend everything until you have a paste and then brush or rub about half over your chicken. If you want to let it marinade do this an hour or so before you want to cook. Pop half an onion up your bird’s bum to keep it moist. (It’s all gone a bit Dapper Laughs now, hasn’t it?)

As I said in my rosemary and thyme chicken post, cooking times vary depending on the weight. It’s usually 45 minutes plus 20 per kilo. Put your chicken in for however long it should cook at 200°c/gas mark 6. Half way through cooking baste again with the rest of your marinade.

When it’s done leave it to rest for ten minutes and then get someone competent, as in, not me, to carve.

We ate this with a big salad and sweet potato chips.