Peri peri sauce

Serves: 8

If they like it, it serves 8 otherwise

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Totaltime: 1 hour 0 minutes

Home-made Peri Peri Sauce is used as dips, accompaniments, marinades or even spreads. This Nandos style Piri Piri Sauce is easy made. PERi-PERi, also known as the African Bird’s Eye Chilli, is the key to our legendary, flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken. It’s grown in the African soil, so the magic starts from the ground up.

Ingredients

2 large red bell peppers, char grilled
1 large red onion, char grilled
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar
zest of one lemon, finely grated
10 small red Thai chilis, roughly chopped (more to taste for hotter sauce)
1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, or plain paprika
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
To finish the sauce (when cooked)
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of one lemon, finely minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

Start by roasting the red peppers and onions. This can be done on a gas grill, under the broiler or on a cast iron grill pan. You want to get good char marks on the outside of the peppers and onions. Don't worry if they are not fully cooked, they will get fully cooked in the sauce.
Chop the peppers and onions and add them to a food processor or blender. You can us an immersion blender if that is all you have on hand, just take the time to get the ingredients well pureed.
Add the garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, lemon zest, red Thai chilis, smoked paprika, oregano, salt and pepper to the food processor with the grilled onions and peppers and puree until smooth.
Transfer the sauce to a medium saucepan, add the bay leaves and simmer slowly for 20-30 minutes.
Let the sauce cool to warm. Remove the bay leaves then return the sauce to the food processor again.
Add the additional lemon juice, red wine vinegar and lemon zest. Puree for another few minutes until very smooth. Slowly add in the olive oil in a thin stream as the processor is running.