Hitting the Hot Spot

Surely it’s no accident that i feel so at home in Southern California, even though I grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The spiky aloes and purple jacarandas, the periodic droughts and the acrid smell of brush fires are all familiar. And then, as now, I was not far from an international border. Just a passport stamp away were cheap wine, exotic music and bullfights in small, dusty arenas.

Where my family lived, British ex-pats clung fast to the tradition of shoe-leather beef and vegetables boiled to the color of army fatigues. We doggedly packed down scabrous, out-of-season Brussels sprouts and steamed puddings in defiance of blistering Southern Hemisphere Christmases. In her garden, my mother watered, composted and willed English peas and strawberries into existence against all climatic odds.

Oh, but east of the border--in Portuguese-settled Mozambique--they had piri-piri, a sublimely throat-scorching hot sauce. Craving relief from culinary blandness, hordes of us made quick-fix dinner runs to flyblown cafes in Vila de Manica. There, we feasted on chicken: either whole birds basted with piri-piri and roasted or pieces marinated in the sauce and then charcoal-grilled. Rice and salad tempered the heat.

For vacations, we drove two hours through the tropical lowlands to the coastal Mozambique city of Beira. Outdoor cafes overlooking the beach served baskets of giant Indian Ocean piri-piri prawns as sundowner snacks. To this day, the aroma of grilled shrimp still evokes the sting of a salty breeze on sunburned arms and fingers slick from the prawns slipping on dewy bottles of local Lion lager.

I had always assumed that piri-piri contained some African ingredient unattainable in Southern California and that it was destined to remain a remembrance of things past. Then, overcome by nostalgia a few years ago, I set out to look for it in earnest. Piri-piri--sometimes spelled peri-peri or pili-pili--comes from the Swahili word for chile peppers, which the Portuguese introduced to Africa from Brazil. Recipes proved elusive. The few I found varied by region, much like the name. Finally, in Laurens van der Post’s out-of-print “African Cooking,” part of Time-Life’s Food of the World series, I ran across a description, though not a precise recipe, of the Mozambique version of the sauce.

After a little experimentation, I discovered the combination of locally available chiles that replicate the flavor and intensity of the tiny African variety. And now piri-piri is a staple at my summer barbecues. The Afro-Portuguese use of chiles provides a nice alternative to Mexican or Southwestern dishes while still satisfying the taste for fire.

The following recipe is good for either chicken or shrimp. In Mozambique, cooks grated fresh coconut flesh and extracted fresh coconut milk for piri-piri. But there’s no need to do that here. I save time and spare myself the skinned knuckles by buying canned coconut milk at the grocery store. I just make sure I buy it unsweetened.

Now if only I could track down some Lion lager.

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PIRI-PIRI

Makes 1 1/4 cups, enough for 4 chicken breasts or 1 pound of shelled jumbo shrimp

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4 red jalapeno peppers, stemmed and seeded

2 habanero peppers, stemmed and seeded

Juice of 2 lemons

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 cup unsweetened canned coconut milk

2 tablespoons peanut oil

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Roughly chop peppers and combine with lemon juice and salt in small pan. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently, covered, 5 minutes. Combine pepper mixture and parsley in blender or food processor and process into thin paste. (Be careful not to splatter liquid on your face or inhale fumes.) Cool pepper mixture to room temperature.

Add coconut milk to cooled pepper mixture. Divide pepper mixture, reserving half.

Pour other half of pepper mixture over chicken or shrimp in shallow dish. Turn to coat. Cover and marinate in refrigerator 30 minutes for shrimp and 1 hour for chicken, turning once. Prepare charcoal grill. Remove chicken or shrimp from marinade, scraping off excess (oil in coconut milk may harden in refrigerator). Combine peanut oil and 2 tablespoons marinade. Baste chicken or shrimp with oil-marinade mixture before and during grilling. Grill chicken until crisp outside and no longer pink inside, about 7 minutes per side. Grill shrimp until no longer translucent, about 2 minutes per side.

Bring reserved pepper mixture to boil and serve over chicken or shrimp.

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Food stylist: Christine Anthony-Masterson