WILLY'S HOMEMADE NANDO'S

Everyone likes a Nando's. Piri-piri chicken is the bomb dot com. This is a a lot like proper piri-piri in terms of taste and it slaps well hard. A nice bit of spicy salt to coat your crispy potato chip business and a lovely little slaw. Just make sure your mum doesn't catch you getting unlimited squash refills whilst you're in the kitchen when you said you were just having water. She might batter you.

An Hour (Plus Marinading Time)

Ingredients

(To Serve 4)

FOR THE CHICKEN/MARINADE

‍One Large Chicken
2 Green Finger Chillies
1 Red Chilli (De-seed if you want less spice)
Handful of Chives
A Red Pepper (Diced)
A White Onion (Peeled and Diced)
5-6 Cloves of Garlic (Peeled)
Tablespoon of Smoked Paprika
Juice of a Lemon
Tablespoon Olive Oil
Tablespoon Red Wine Vinegar
Salt & Pepper

FOR THE SPICY POTATOES

4-5 Maris Piper Potatoes
Tablespoon Garlic Powder
Teaspoon Chilli Flakes
Tablespoon Oregano
Teaspoon Mixed Spice
Half Teaspoon Celery Salt
Teaspoon Chilli Powder
Half Tablespoon Smoked Paprika
Tablespoon Plain Flour
4 Tablespoons Rapeseed Oil

FOR THE SLAW

Half a White Cabbage
A Red Onion
A Medium Sized Carrot
Juice of a Lime
2 Tablespoons Mayo
Salt and Pepper
Handful of Peanuts

Chives (To serve)‍‍

Ingredients

Instructions

To make your marinade you will need a food processor/blender. Whack in your chillies, chives, pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, lemon juice, smoked paprika, vinegar, olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. Blitz that to a thin paste, or a thin liquid. A thick-uid. Set this aside.
To get the best results here we must spatchcock our chicken. It will take less time to cook this way and things will be just a tad more perfect. We basically just have to remove the back bone by cutting down one side of it and then the other. There is some cartilage in the middle that needs to be broken and then we have a flat chicken which will cook faster. Pop it on a tray skin side up, use a sharp knife to score the skin a little bit, then use one of those kitchen paint brushes or your hands (if you're feeling dangerous) to smear a good load of your piri-piri sauce on it. Do both sides and then cover the chicken and refrigerate it for a minimum of 6 hours or overnight. During this time you could have a quick go on Skyrim for 24 hours.
When you have done quite enough marinading we can preheat an oven to 180ºC. The chicken needs 45 minutes on that and will then need 15 minutes under a grill.
Whilst the chicken is cooking we can chop up our spuds and get them into salty boiling water. Skin on or skin off, it is up to you. I like the crunch from the skin. Boil these for about 5-6 minutes. Whilst they boil we can get a little bowl and mix our garlic powder, oregano, chilli flakes, mixed spice, celery salt, chilli powder and paprika. If you have a top/bottom oven preheat it to 200ºC. If you don't then these may need a little longer and when the chicken is done you may have to rest it for the spuds to finish. Put your rapeseed oil in deep-ish oven tray and get it nice and hot in the oven.
When the spuds are boiled get them drained and covered in half of the spicy salt and your plain flour. Toss them about in the pan. Pop these onto your rapeseed oil tray and get them into the oven. Ideally 30-35 minutes on 200ºC.
For your slaw you need to thinly slice the cabbage, red onion and grate the carrot. Get this in a bowl with some lime juice and your mayo. Season with salt and pepper. I like to add peanuts for an extra bit of crunchiness. Get that all mixed together. You can at this point mix two tablespoons of mayo with two teaspoons of your leftover piri-piri sauce to create piri-mayo.
You will likely have to switch your chicken to the grill now so give it a glaze of piri-piri sauce and then whack it under a hot grill for 15 minutes. During this time your spuds should be done and can be tossed in a bowl with the remaining spicy salt to get nicely covered.
Chop your chicken legs off and the breasts and serve on plates. Your mum likes leg but your dad is a breast man. Give a handful of chips and a handful of slaw to each lucky person and enjoy a really nice dinner. Top with chives. Extra spicy sauce if anyone wants it. Creamy, spicy mayo as well. What a day.