We made our way from Turkey to Portugal in this episode of THM Travels the World!
The country is run by a Parliamentary democracy. Portuguese is the official language, and is also the official language in 9 other countries (over 230 million people are native speakers!). Mirandese is the second official language, but is only locally spoken.
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| Prince Henry. (What a hottie!!) |
The oldest bookstore in the world can be found in the country's capital city, Lisbon. Bertrand Bookstore has been in operation since 1732.
In 1755, Portugal was struck by one of the deadliest earthquakes in history. Called the Great Lisbon earthquake, seismologists (earthquake scientists) estimate the 'quake had a magnitude of 8.5-9.0! It lasted 3-6 minutes, and then 40 minutes later, a tsunami washed over the city, and then fires raged for five days in response. The death toll in Lisbon alone rose between 10,000 to 100,000 people! I actually had to read a book last year called Candide, written by the infamous Voltaire, which was inspired by the earthquake.
On a lighter note, Portugal was the first nation to abolish slavery. 1761!!!
The Portuguese Princess during the late 1600s, Catarina de Braganca, was the one to introduce drinking tea in Britain. The Portuguese Gorreana is Europe's oldest remaining tea company, which began in 1883.
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| Harvesting the bark of a cork tree |
In 2008, Portugal became the first country for it to be mandatory to have fingerprints on identity cards.
According to the World Peach Index (2013), the country is ranked as the 18th most peaceful country.
The national dish of Portugal is bacalhau, which is salted cod, and is said to be cooked in over 365 ways.
Did we make bacalhau?
...no we did not. Do you know how hard it is to find bacalhau? Like, impossible! We did our due diligence and researched the heck out of the fish and where we could purchase it (we as in my mom), but we were defeated. But this blog is not about adhering to strict rules, so instead of making the national dish, we made a very popular native dish.
Piri Piri chicken!
This was an S meal!!! We used a whole chicken, with the skin, which THM classifies as an S meal (higher fat, low carb).
We combined this recipe and this one, and tweaked it to make it our own.
Piri Piri chicken gets its name from..... piri piri chiles. Just like the native salted cod fish we couldn't find, these chiles also turned out to be nonexistent in our city of Little Rock. My mom scoured the town, perusing Whole Foods, Fresh Market, local Mexican groceries, and even WalMart! Nothing. To substitute the most important ingredient of the dish, she had to be smart. So she grabbed some peppers that sort of looked like what she thought piri piri chiles would look like. We are on a roll already with this recipe!!
After exactly two whole weeks of procrastinating, we finally made this Portuguese favorite!
Ingredients: 2 whole young chickens
For the marinade:
1/4 cup chile puya pods (or piri piri chiles)
1 large clove garlic -- peeled and crushed
1 cup coconut oil
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 red bell pepper1 Tbs paprika
1 bay leaf
2 tsp oregano
salt and pepper to taste
Steps:
Preheat grill to medium/low.
Cut bell pepper into quarters. Remove core and seeds. Place on grill until charred or consistency desired.
Finely cut chiles until you get 1/4 cup.
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| The seeds were a nightmare! |
Heat on medium/low until coconut oil is melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Once cool, blend ingredients along with bell pepper in blender or food processor.
Place back in saucepan along with bay leaf. Bring to boil. Reduce and simmer for 5 minutes.
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| So appetizing... |
Remove from heat and set aside.
Using sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut chickens in half.
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| Featuring my mom's hand, because I was NOT doing this step! |
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| Don't you just want to eat this? |
Place chickens in large bowl. Pour half of the marinade over the chickens, reserve rest for sauce later. Toss to coat.
Place chickens on grill.
Cook, turning occasionally, approximately 45 minutes, or until meat thermometer reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remove and let rest for about 20 minutes before serving.
Serve with remaining "piri piri" sauce on the side.
And walah! You have a semi-native dish of Portugal!! I can only imagine what it must taste like made with real piri piri chiles!!
We served our chicken with grilled sweet potatoes and zucchini. Delicious!
Thoughts and Comments:
Madeline: I feel like I was half asleep while making this recipe. I left the house during the actual cook time to run errands, and so this meal was a blur to me! However, this didn't reflect the flavor of this dish. I mean, YUM. I feel like civilized people would have cut the chicken into nice little pieces to eat, but with our family, we dug in like cavemen. There was sauce everywhere while strips of chicken were being torn from the bone by our teeth. It was awesome. Plus, this was super easy to make, and I feel like it can be apart of our normal meal routine!
Lisa: This was my first time to cut a whole chicken in half like this. I actually looked it up on Youtube to see how to do it. It was kind of gross, but really not as bad as I imagined it would be. I really liked grilling chicken like this more than individual pieces. I would never be able to grill meat without my meat thermometer. I have a Pampered Chef digital one that I love.
We didn't realize we were going to blend this sauce until we had already begun to boil it. BE SURE and let it cool. Blending hot liquid, especially oil, would be dangerous. This sauce was REALLY good! The grilled bell pepper added a wonderful flavor, both on the grilled chicken and as a dipping sauce. Oh, and I really enjoyed going to the Mexican market. It made me excited for more Mexican and Latin American dishes to come! One last funny note. Several days later I was out shopping and saw one of our local restaurants and noticed the sign said "Bonehead's Grill - piri piri chicken" I thought I'd never heard of Piri Piri before and there it was! And I've eaten there. I'm so observant!
Up Next: St. Vincent and the Grenadines!!!
For your enjoyment, traditional Portuguese music:
Piri Piri Chicken:
Preheat grill to medium/low.
Cut 1 red bell pepper into quarters. Remove core and seeds. Place on grill until charred or consistency desired.
Finely cut chile puya pods until you get 1/4 cup. Combine chiles, 1 large clove garlic -- peeled and crushed, 1 cup coconut oil, 2 tsp red wine vinegar, 1 Tbs paprika, 2 tsp oregano, and
salt and pepper to taste into saucepan.
Heat on medium/low until coconut oil is melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Once cool, blend ingredients along with bell pepper in blender or food processor.
Place back in saucepan along with bay leaf. Bring to boil. Reduce and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Using sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut chickens in half.
Once cool, blend ingredients along with bell pepper in blender or food processor.
Place back in saucepan along with bay leaf. Bring to boil. Reduce and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Using sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut chickens in half.
Place chickens in large bowl. Pour half of the marinade over the chickens, reserve rest for sauce later. Toss to coat.
Place chickens on grill. Cook, turning occasionally, approximately 45 minutes, or until meat thermometer reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remove and let rest for about 20 minutes before serving.
Serve with remaining "piri piri" sauce on the side.
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