Peri-peri sauce

Reprinted with permission of Pan Macmillan and Jan Braai – Fireworks.

Finely chop the garlic and throw this into a glass bottle or jar with the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, water, paprika powder, chilli powder and salt. Shake well until the ingredients are mixed and all the salt dissolved.

Now taste the sauce and if you want it hotter, add a few finely chopped chillies to the sauce and shake. You can add as many chillies as you wish but remember that you can never expect your guests to eat a sauce that is too hot for them. If, like me, you like quite a lot of burn then it might be wise to mix two batches, one with fewer chillies.

Do not touch your eyes or any other sensitive parts of your body while you are making this sauce as the traces of chilli juice left on your hands will burn those sensitive parts. Go and wash your hands to get the chilli juices off them, and then still be careful.

The sauce can be used immediately but will improve with age and last in your fridge for weeks.

The use of peri-peri chillies and sauces filtered into South Africa from our Portuguese-speaking neighbouring countries Mozambique and Angola. The peri-peri (also called African Bird’s Eye or Piri-Piri) chilli is a member of the Capsicum family of chillies. Compared to the average chilli it’s quite small and very hot.

If you can’t get hold of it, use any small and potent chilli. But best is to get yourself a plant and cultivate them at home; they grow quite easily in most parts of South Africa. In the photo on the opposite page you can see what they look like.

measurements for once-off use
Sometimes you don’t need a whole jar of peri-peri so then use these quantities:
1 tot oil
1 tot vinegar
1 tot lemon juice,
1 tot water
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp salt
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 or more small hot chillies.