Pretty soon these chillies, specifically the african birds eye chilli which was named Piri-Piri after the Swahili word for pepper (piri) were growing wild and being cultivated in these countries. Like many nations who discovered Chilli Peppers the local cuisine quickly grew dependent on it for some of their better known condiments and dishes.

Piri Piri sauce is a familiar combination of Hot, Sweet, Sour like many other sauces around the world and is used as a marinade/sauce for all sorts of meat and seafood. Naturally the traditional way to cook piri piri chicken is over a wood or charcoal fire. The chicken is usually butterflied and marinated before cooking, often in a wire grill cage. If you don’t want to cook a whole chicken you could easily just use Marylands.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken or 4-6 Marylands.
A handful of African birds eye chillies (or any fiery hot chilli, red or green are both fine)
6 tbsp. fresh lime juice
4 tsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh ginger
1/2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
2 cloves garlic

Put all of your ingredients ( except for your chicken ) into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Refridgerate this mix for up to 24 hours for the flavours to amalgamate.

Butterfly your chicken and marinate it in half the piri piri sauce for at least 6 hours.

Get a good fire going in your barbecue, stacked to one side so that you have a high heat section of the grill and a low heat section. Once the charcoal is well lit and the smoke is clean you’re good to cook the chicken. Put it into a wire basket if you have one and place skinside down on the hot side of the grill. After about 10 minutes flip it over. After another 10 minutes flip it back to skinside down and move it to the cooler side of the grill to finish cooking.

As usual with chicken you’re aiming for about 70C ( 160F ) in the thickest part of the meat, or until the juices run clear. Remove from the heat and allow to rest for about 15 minutes.

Here it is served with a nice cheesy Leek Gratin.

Until now.   I recently watched a great youtube video of the venerable Jacques Pepin demonstrating the technique.  I went out right away and bought the cheapest chicken I could find and had a practice run at it.  It’s actually a very simple technique I was a little clumsy at it but give me another hundred or so and I reckon I’d be able to do it blindfolded.  I might still be a ways off cutting up a chicken into primals in 18 seconds though.

Ballotine is a french technique where you bone out a chicken, stuff it and then poach or roast it. The result is a kind of large chicken sausage or meatloaf that can be eaten either hot, or cold.

I won’t try to explain the deboning technique.  Watch the youtube video a few times, then follow it carefully when you debone your first bird.  You’ll be surprised after doing it just once you’ll be able to do it the second time without the video. I didn’t bother to remove the wings and do the lollypop trick as I wanted the bird to look as whole as possible, but I did remove the legbones and stuff them with the sausage meat.

The chicken I used for this recipe was a pastured chicken which was quite small, actually a little bit too small for the stuffing I used which is why the sausage layer is uneven (I had to remove some to get the bird to close properly).  Next time I’ll use an older/larger bird. If you do have a much larger chicken you can just use more sausage to fill out the difference, or you could also do an extra layer of thin veal steaks, bacon, etc.

Ingredients

• 1 deboned chicken
• 1 pork tenderloin
• 1-1.5 kg (2-3 pounds ) lamb sausage ( skins removed ).
• a bunch of Collard Greens ( or any large leaf )
• Salt and pepper

Blanch your greens for a few seconds in salted boiling water, rinse quickly in iced water to stop it cooking and then pat it dry with a paper towel.

Plop your chicken out on a cutting board skin side down and season the exposed flesh with salt and pepper.  Stuff some of the lamb sausage into the cavities left by the missing leg bones.  This will help the legs keep some shape when the chicken is trussed.

Next lay down a few leaves of the greens to fully cover the exposed flesh.  Next spread out a layer of the lamb sausage on the greens and place the tenderloin on top.  You’ll probably need to cut the tenderloin to the correct length, season it generously with salt and pepper when you do so.

Now carefully roll up the stuffing, making sure the leaves completely encase the meats. Once this is done fold over one side of the bird, followed by the other making sure they overlap slightly. Flip the chicken over so it is cut side down and truss the bird following the instruction from the Pepin video above. Don’t worry too much if there’s some exposed greens (see the picture below), they’ll help protect the stuffing from direct exposure to the cooking. then wrap the chicken tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

If you’re fancy and have some Transglutaminase lying around the house you can use it between the layers and the cut in the chicken to glue it back together which will mean you can cook it untrussed for a slightly nicer looking finish.

Bring your smoker up to a steady temperature of 110C ( 225F ) with lump charcoal ( mesquite is my preferred wood for poultry ).   Give the chicken a quick run down with salt and pepper or your favourite BBQ rub ( just a little though, you want to add a touch of flavour, not overpower the chicken ) and place it cut side down in the smoker.  I also added a few rosemary sticks to the charcoal to add a slightly herby taste to the smoke.

Smoke the chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of about 80C (180F).  Remove it from the smoker and leave out to rest for about an hour.  While the chicken is resting put a cast iron skillet in the oven and preheat it to your oven’s highest temperature setting.

Give the chicken a quick baste with melted butter and put it in the pan in the oven.  Wait about 5 minutes, baste it again and turn it.  This will help crisp up the chicken skin a bit and lessen the rubbery texture chicken skin can take on when it’s smoked at low temperature.

Remove the trussing and serve the chicken whole at the table.   Carve it crossways to show off the cross-section.  With any luck you’ll have tricked your guests into thinking they’re just getting a plain chicken and will get an ‘oooo’ moment when they see you make the first cut and expose the cross-section.

I also cooked some corn in the smoker ( unshucked ), some new potatoes, a loaf of home-made sourdough ‘Wurzelbrot’, some Roast Chicken and Vinho Verde Gravy, and a quick leafy salad.

Ingredients
* 6 eggs
* 1.5 cups sugar
* 1.5 tsp lemon (or lime) zest
* 1.5 tb flour
* 3/4 stick of melted butter
* 1.5 cups buttermilk
* 1 vanilla pod ( or 1 tsp essense )
* 2 unbaked 8″ pie crusts

In a large bowl whisk your eggs until combined then whisk in the sugar and the zest. Next whisk in the flour and then the butter and buttermilk. Scrape the vanilla pod into the bowl followed by the pod itself. Cover in fridge until ready to cook.

Preheat your oven to 160C (325F). Give the pie filling a final whisk to redistribute the vanilla seeds and then strain it into the pie crusts. Cook this in the oven for about 50 minutes or until the custard is set ( can still be slightly wobbly it will set further as it cools ). Cool to room temperature before eating.

Serve with whipped cream and berries or a nice ice-cream.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg (3 pounds) cubed pork shoulder
• 5 poblano pepper
• 5 Anaheim peppers
• 1 kg ( 2 pounds ) tomatillos husks removed
• 6 whole garlic cloves (skin on)
• 4 jalapeño peppers
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups loosely packed cilantro leaves
• 2 med onion, sliced
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 litre chicken stock

Preheat your broiler/grill on full.

Toss the cubed pork with about 2Tb of salt and a generous dash of pepper and put to the side.

cook the Poblano and Anaheim chillies under the broiler, turning every 5 minutes or so until the outside is charred. Remove into a bowl and cover with foil to allow them to steam in their own heat.

Now toss the Tomatillos, Garlic and Jalapeno Chillies in some oil and salt and broil under charred and softened. Turning to char all sides. Transfer to a food processor or blender along with any liquid in the bottom of the tray, removing the stems from the Jalapeno, and the skins from the garlic.

Peel the Poblano and Anaheim chillies under running water, removing the stems and seeds at the same time. Transfer these ( and any liquid from the bottom of the bowl ) to the blender.

Add half the Cilantro to the blender and blend until smooth. Taste it and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Preheat your oven to 110C (225F).

Put a large pan over high heat ( preferably enameled cast iron ) and brown off half the pork. Once the pork is browned all over add the onion and the cumin and cook until the onion softens. Add the rest of the pork and pour over the green chilli mix from the blender followed by the chicken stock.

Bring to the boil and then transfer to the oven ( with the lid slightly ajar ). Cook for about three hours until the pork shreds when squashed with a spoon. Stir in remaining cilantro and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve immediately with toasted corn tortillas, diced onion, sour cream and cilantro.

bonus round
With an hour to go strain off a cup of the liquid from dish and transfer into a small pot, mix in 1 tsp of Agar Agar powder and bring to the boil. Take off the boil right away and pour into a container and refrigerate to set into a Jelly. Take out the container and use a stick mixer to break up the jelly and wazz it until it becomes a thick liquid. Pour this back into the chilli just before serving and stir. This will thicken up the sauce (Agar based jelly is heat proof) without adding any foreign tastes.

Usually you would start with the carcass from a roast chicken, but I didn’t have this so I substituted in a pair of chicken legs. Also all my supermarket had available was wingette’s … you actually want full chicken wings, but as I’ve shown here you can make do with anything. All you really need is lots of surface area and skin to do the browning.

Ingredients
* 1 carcass and bones from a roast chicken
* about a dozen chicken wings
* 2 peeled carrots
* 2 onions
* 3 or 4 button mushrooms
* 1 bay leaf
* 2 cloves garlic
* milk powder ( skim or buttermilk both seem to work as well as eachother )
* 8 white peppercorns

Arrange your chicken wings in a baking tray and give them a generous dusting of the milk powder. Turn them and redust. Give a generous seasoning and put into a 200C (400F) oven. Bake for 20 minutes and turn the chicken. Add the carrots and bake for another 20 minutes. turn the chicken again and bake for another 20 minutes ( 60 minutes total ). If you’re happy with the browning of the chicken take it out. if you want it browner ( the closer to burnt without being burnt the better for flavour ) crank it up to 230C ( 450F) until you are.

While the chicken is cooking chop the onion into a small saucepan. add a dash of white wine, some water, a slug of olive oil and seasoning. Bring to the boil and cook until all the liquid is evaporated. Turn the heat down to medium and cook the onion stirring occasionally until it is dark and jammy. Don’t let it burn on the bottom. This stuff is great, i like to make a batch of it with about 12 onions and freeze it, I’ll also use it as a base for bacon jam.

Put all your ingredients into a pressure cooker. Deglaze the baking pan with water and pour this and enough water to cover the chicken over the stock ingredients and cook on high pressure for about 2 hours. Let the pressure release naturally and the stock cool. Strain the stock into containers and allow to cool completely before refrigerating.

Your stock should be a dark brown colour and smell of roasted meat. Once cooled you can keep it in the fridge for a few days, or the freezer for a few months. If you freeze it you might want to freeze it in ice cube trays to make it easy to dispense small amounts for say adding flavour and body to a sauce for steak. Remember there’s little to no salt in this, so when you use it you’ll want to make sure your dishes are properly seasoned.

A quick message to my friend Hank Shaw who points me to a recent blog post he did on Plucking Game Birds and I was feeling better about it and I soon found myself stripping the birds of their plumage with paraffin wax.

Next came gutting the birds. I figured it couldn’t be too difficult I’ve gutted plenty of fish in my life, surely this couldn’t be too different. And it wasn’t. I cut open just under the breast bone and pulled down to open each birds cavity and most of their fun middle bits fell out neatly. I then cut open the neck and pulled out the thorax from the top end. With all the entrails and fun stuff out of the way I just had to fish around a bit for the liver, heart, and lungs. Easy.

As you can see one of the ducks looks quite handsome with nice white fat under the skin, the other though had orange fat and was a bit manky with a bunch of pellet holes. I did some reading and I’m guessing the manky one is a Gadwall, Hank suggested it would be good for soup. I struck on the idea of gumbo which I’ve made a few times before and is a good way to use sub-par meat.

Hank has a recipe for Wild Game Gumbo so I figured it would be a good yardstick and used his basic ingredient set, but went my own way on the preparation.

Spice Mix
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon celery seed

Roux
• 250g (1 cup) butter
• 125g (1 cup) flour

Main Ingredients
• 2 kg (4 pounds) of meats ( I used the smaller duck, andouille sausage, beef cubes, and some bbq pork ribs and confit pork belly from my freezer )
• 250g ( 1/2 pound ) bacon cut into lardons ( home cured of course )
• 2 finely diced green peppers
• 2 finely diced medium onions
• 5-6 finely diced celery stalks
• 6 finely diced cloves garlic
• 1 Litre home made chicken stock ( don’t use bought stock, just use water if you don’t make your own stock )
• 1 Litre of water
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 lb okra, sliced crossways
• A small bunch of thinly sliced green onions
• A bunch of chopped parsley leaves
• Finely chopped parsley stalks from above.
• 2 tablespoons file powder

Preparation

First make your roux. Melt the butter in a pan ( cast iron is great for this ) and when it stops foaming add the flour. Whisk the mixture until it becomes a paste and then let the flour brown whisking it just enough to stop it burning. It’s a bit of a game of chicken the darker the roux the better, but you don’t want to burn it. Cook it for as long as your nerves can handle and then pour it off into a container to cool off.

Next cook off your bacon over low heat until it has released enough fat to cook on. Put the bacon aside and start browning your meats in batches. Between batches of meat you may need to cook the bacon some more to render more fat out to cook in. Eventually all your meats will be nicely browned and you’ll finish off the bacon if its not already nicely crispy.

With your meat cooked you now want to start building the flavours of the dish. First cook off your Peppers, Onion, Celery and garlic in batches. You want to bring them right to the edge of burning… Again its a battle of nerves. The closer to burnt the better the final flavour but you don’t want to actually burn them.

Once that is done you’ll want to to mix your roux and your vegetables with the tomato paste and half the spice mix in a large pot ( I initially started using my electric pressure cooker which has a simmer feature, but it didn’t really get hot enough so I had to transfer back to a normal pot ). Stir it until hot and then slow add in the stock and water while constantly stirring to avoid clumping.

Once this starts to simmer add your meats in and continue to simmer for at least 90 minutes, but preferably 3 or 4 hours. If any of your meat had bones in it you’ll want to pull it out towards the end and remove the bones. The flesh should fall off them easily. Through this cooking process you’ll want to frequently skim off any scum or froth that forms. You’ll also want to taste it regularly and adjust with more of the spice mix, some hot sauce, and salt.

With about 15 minutes to go add in your Okra and Parsley stalks. And then just before serving stir through the chopped Parsley, Green Onions and File Powder. Serve with rice or by itself. Don’t feel the need to build a silly rice tower.

It’s also a remarkably simple recipe. The Ragu itself is just a few ingredients and if you use quick cook polenta it can come together in about 25 minutes. I jazzed it up with a sparking Vino Verde Gelee, but don’t feel obliged to go that far.

Vino Verde Gelee
* 200 ml Vino Verde
* 20g Sugar
* 1.5g agar

Bring half the wine to the boil and add in the sugar and agar. Stir for a minute and take off the heat. Add in the rest of the wine and pour into shallow dishes to set. It will set out of the fridge, but feel free to throw it in. When ready to serve take it out of the dish and slice into cubes.

Creamy Polenta
* 400 ml milk
* 1 bay leaf
* a sprig of thyme
* 2 whole cloves garlic
* half a dozen white peppercorns
* 150g quick cook polenta
* 20g butter
* 20g parmesan

Bring the milk to the boil and immediately turn off the heat. Add the bay, thyme, garlic and peppercorns and let steep for 20 mins. strain out the milk and bring it back to boil. Take it off the heat and stir through the polenta, butter, and parmesan and cover.

Mushroom Ragu
* Olive oil
* knob of butter
* 500g sliced mixed mushrooms ( the more varieties the better )
* small bag of dried chantrelles
* 1 garlic clove ( grated over microplane )
* 2 Shallots, finely chopped.
* leaves from a sprig of thyme
* 150 ml red wine

Pour a cup of boiling water over the Chantrelles and allow to steep about 30 minutes before starting then chop them and add to the mushrooms. Bring a pan to heat and add in half the oil and butter. Cook half of the mushrooms and thyme until browned, put aside and cook the other half.

Saute the shallots and garlic in a dash of olive oil until fragrant. Add in the mushrooms and the red wine. Pour in about 150ml of the mushroom stock ( the soaking water from the Chantrelles ) and bring to the simmer.

Taste and season when the liquid has reduced by about half and take off the heat.

Spoon the polenta into a bowl and then the mushroom ragu on top. Grate some Parmesan over the top and then place cubes of the gelee around the plate.

Well after seeing a write up on the ‘science’ of risotto on SeriousEats I decided to give it a shot. I read through the information and it all did seem to make sense. Of course the proof was in the pudding and after making a risotto roughly following their recipe I gotta say … It was pretty damn good.

* 380g Risotto rice
* 1L chicken stock (cold)
* 1 cup white wine
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic grated on a microplane
* 2 small shallots
* 1/2 cup cream, whipped to soft peaks
* 60g Parmesan
* 500g Mushrooms
* a few sprigs of Thyme

Combine the rice, stock and wine in a bowl and agitate for a few minutes. strain the stock out and allow rice to drain. This extracts starch from the rice which helps to thicken the risotto later.

Saute off the mushrooms and thyme in some butter and oil until browned. Set aside.

Heat the rest of the butter and oil and when really hot add in the rice, tossing frequently until all the liquid is evaporated and rice is starting to give off a nutty aroma.

Add the Shallots and Garlic and cook while stirring for a few minutes. Reserve a cup of stock and add the rest and the mushrooms to the rice and bring up to a simmer. Stir the rice, cover it, and reduce heat down as low as possible.

Cook the rice for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and rice is almost tender, shake or stir once halfway through.

Remove lid and add the rest of the stock liquid. Bring heat up to high and shake or stir constantly until thick and creamy. Take it off the heat and add in the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Now add just enough of the cream to loosen the rice up a bit.

Serve with a few tender stalks of Asparagus and a shaking of Togarashi to give it some colour.

Ingredients

Moussaka

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 kg ground meat ( Lamb, Beef, Pork or any combination of the three )
• 2 finely chopped onions
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 x 400g cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 x eggplants, cut into 5mm slices lengthways ( use a mandolin if you have one )
• 2 red capsicums
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 green cardamon pods
• 2 tablespoons sage, finely chopped
• 200g grated soft sheeps cheese.

Béchamel

• 3 cups milk
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 100g unsalted butter
• ½ cup plain flour*

can  use conflour to make this gluten free … or mix Tzatziki with eggs and use this instead for low carb.

Method

Heat your oven to 200c ( 400f ).    cut a few slits in your capsicums and put them in the hot oven turning every ten minutes or so.  remove them and wrap in foil to rest when the skins are all black and blistered.

Meanwhile heat a large pan and brown off the meat with a generous sprinkle of salt.   Feel free to do this in batches to make sure it browns well.    Add the Cumin, Cinnamon, Cardamon and Oregano and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Remove the meat from the pan.

Add some olive oil to the pan and throw in the onions and garlic and Saute until soft.  Add the tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes. While this is simmering unwrap your capsicums.  The skin should peel off easily, remove the seeds and chop finely.  Add it into the pan.    Add the meat back into the pan along with the sage.  Cover and simmer on the lowest setting.

Next fire up your grill and get it smoking hot.  layer your eggplant on a platter with a sprinking of salt between layers.   Oil the grill and char the eggplant in batches, re-oiling the grill between batches.

Next the béchamel.  Stud the onion with the cloves and add to a pan with the milk and the bay.   Bring it to a boil and remove from the heat.  Melt the butter in a pan and add in the flour and cook over low heat.   Add in the milk 1/4 cup at a time whisking the whole time.   Cook over low heat for about 15 minutes stirring regularly.

Now to assemble.  Put a layer of eggplant at the bottom of a baking dish.  Add a layer of the sauce and repeat.  Once the dish is almost full add a layer of the béchamel and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake this for about 40 minutes until cheese is nice and browned.    Serve with a nice salad and  a dollop of Tzatziki.

I’ve been experimenting recently with using a Water Roux (Tang Zhong) a Japanese method of heating a flour/water combo to 65C  where it forms a paste and adding it to the dough.  This helps create a fluffy texture to the bread.  Using this technique I started with a fairly traditional Brioche recipe, added the Water Roux and some Cocoa Powder and then substituted chocolate milk for milk.

I tried to keep the sugar content fairly low as I didn’t want the bread itself to be super sweet,  but to instead lend a chocolately undertone to whatever is spread on it.     To add some extra interest to it I added some milk chocolate chips and dollops of Bourbon spiked Dulce de Leche.

Ingredients

• 150g Water Roux ( 50g flour, 250g water )
• 350g Bread Flour
• 50g Sugar
• 5g Salt
• 1 Egg
• 175g Chocolate Milk
• 6g Yeast
• 30g Butter
• 1 shot espresso
• 50g Cocoa Powder

To make the water roux simply whisk flour and water together and heat while stirring until it reaches 65C.   This is about the point where it forms a gluggy paste consistency.

Bring off the heat and add the espresso shot and the butter to the roux, stirring until butter has melted.   add the rest of the liquid ingredients and whisk together.

Now add the dry ingredients to a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.   turn it onto slow and pour in the liquid ingredients.

Once it’s mixed turn up the speed to 6 and let the paddle bash the dough around to get the gluten forming.   Then switch to the dough hook and knead until ready.   The kitchenaid isn’t very good with wet doughs,  but you can persevere through.

Once the dough is kneaded put it in an oiled bowl and cover for about an hour for the first proof.    Once it has doubled in size knock it back down and seperate into four even pieces.    Roll these out thin and then add chocolate chips and dollops of dulce de leche and roll it up sealing the ends and the seams.

Once all four are rolled up put them into a bread pan like so.

Cover and allow dough to proof again before baking at 350F/175C  for about 30 minutes.  Then remove from the pan and rest on a rack to cool.

While it’s warm it can be eaten as is … but when cool is best eaten spread with more Dulce de Leche or your favourite Jam.    It would probably also work great in a bread pudding.