That’s why you buy 5.
Family restaurant style (although they do takeaway too) - unbreaded chicken (on its own or in sandwiches, wraps, etc); you pick the spice level of the marinade from Plain-ish to Extra Hot.
Ignorance fought, thank you!
In addition to adding, it’s based around chicken in a Piri-Piri marinade, a hot and spicy vinegar marinade from Portugal similar to Chicken Tikka.
Yes. Specifically, peri-peri chicken. Peri-peri is a specific variety of birds-eye chili, and the sauce made from it.
It varies by location, but overall I’d say it’s an even split. I generally do get it to go when I have it, which isn’t that frequently.
Peri-peri sauce is African, not Portuguese. Even the notion that it was first produced by Portuguese in Africa, as told by the Nando’s founders, is a lie.
Good to know. I’ll put it on the “restaurants to avoid when abroad” list - I’m a spice weenie.
Thanks for the response.
They also do a lemon+herb chili-free style.
It’s not like it predated the Portuguese explorers or anything, considering that chiles were a New World vegetable, and almost certainly came to Africa with them.
At best, you could say that it’s something that started in Africa with ingredients introduced by the Portuguese. And I suspect that considering that other vinegar & chiles type savory dishes also originated with Portuguese roots like Vindaloo in Goa, I’d bet that peri-peri has a good dose of Portuguese cuisine involved, even if it’s not specifically a Portuguese dish.
I was careful to say the sauce, not the chili itself. And no, I’m not arguing there isn’t a Portuguese influence on the sauce. But sauces like it occurs in some variety all up-and-down the East Coast of Africa, far beyond the range of where Portuguese actually lived permanently.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
And in any case, none of that makes it
Arby’s is another chain that I quite like, particularly their curly fries, that’s vanished almost entirely from my neck of the woods. I have to drive at least an hour to get to a franchise, so I only ever get to eat it if I’m coming back to Toronto from London (ON) or Hamilton.
Why would they be so expensive in the UK? Are some of the ingredients super-rare over there?
I’ve had Portuguese peri-peri (or piri-piri/peli-peli/pili-pili) that is different than South African or Mozambique peri-peri. The sauce is basically just chiles and olive oil. That said, my understanding is peri-peri was developed in Mozambique. In Montreal, interestingly, they call peri-peri “Portuguese chicken” and there’s quite a few stands specializing in it. Good eats, wherever it comes from. The one time I was in South Africa for a week or so, I ate peri-peri every single day. Had no idea what it was, but saw it involved chiles, which is a fast track to my heart.
ETA: Short aside, any recommended recipes for some of the East Coast African chile sauces? Always looking to expand my repertoire.
Whenever I am in Rio de Janeiro, I always eat at McDonalds a time or two. The Brazilians have done American fast food right.
Their meat is seasoned to a more South American palate (more seasoning than Americans are used to) and therefore the burgers are delicious.
They use soda made with cane sugar.
Their fruit pies are still deep fried.
And I can always get local soda such as Guarana.
I’ve used this one just last year, it’s a generic Swahili-style pili-pili. Differs from more Mozambican peri-peri in being tomato-based, and using lemon as the acid, but the relationship is clear.
I replaced the garam masala with ras el hanout, but any mix of spices will likely do.
From what I previously understood, is that the Portuguese connection was because they were the bridging point of the first major importation of spices from India.
Actually, from the wiki: " It was originally produced by Portuguese explorers in Portugal’s former Southern African territories,[2][3] particularly Mozambique and its border regions with South Africa, and then spread to other Portuguese domains."
The basics being that it came over via the spice trade, went out to the colonies and thrived much more there.
Which kind of makes “And in any case, none of that makes it” (from Portugal) kind of a bit… wrong.
The relative price of beef is pretty expensive in the UK. Order a beef sandwich and you get a few thin slices of beef. It might not even be that true nowadays, but its been so expensive in the past (and during war time), that often the portions are not good probably through tradition, expectations and how little they could habitually get away with.
You’d probably be quite shocked how little you’d get in a steak and cheese subway sandwich, and given the franchise can change the portion sizes, if you got to a busy one in an expensive location you get about a teaspoon of it per six inch sub.
McDonald’s is actually very good at this. In India they don’t have beef or pork in their burgers, and it is spiced to an Indian palate. You have things like the Maharaja Mac that is made with chicken (or veg), but has jalapenos and habanero sauce. And then McSpicy Paneer.
I can’t speak about roast beef sandwiches in the UK, but I remember being consistently surprised by how cheap McNuggets are in the US (compared to Canada).
The sauce was first made in Africa. It was not, therefore, from Portugal. It is flat-out wrong. “Expatriate Portuguese colonists” and “Portugal” are not synonyms, even if you believe the colonists solely came up with the sauce (which they did not).
I frankly don’t really care, there certainly seems to be some sort of ambiguity and to hijack this thread with is up to you, the wiki says that, you can take that whatever way you will.
Nandos is from South Africa. It could lead to misunderstanding. It’s real origin if you really want to go back that far is India, really. However, go off and argue this in another thread. I won’t be there to read it.
In absolutely no way does Nando’s originate in India. Where the hey did you come up with that wrongness?