Portuguese Chicken Piri Piri

In Portuguese this is called, "Frango Piri Piri." The small, hot, red chili peppers used by the Portuguese, "piri piri" (the term is from Swahili), are a common addition to a number of Portuguese recipes. They are a cousin to tabasco peppers and they vary from about 40,000 to more than 100,000 units on the Scoville Heat Scale for chilies. They come in jars in a vinegar brine and they can be a bit hard to find in the United States, although perhaps not in areas where many in the population have Portuguese heritage, like in parts of New England, California and Florida, where imported Portuguese products are likely more common. You will definitely find them online. Now, if you don't have these exact peppers, do not despair, as you can use just about any very hot chili pepper.

When I made this dish, I was just astounded by how good it was. I had piri piri peppers in a jar, and the brine was not overwhelmingly vinegary. You don't have to make it so hot that all you experience is heat from the chilies, but there's no question, if you have any nasal congestion, you won't have it after eating some of this chicken, but the flavor of the overall sauce was so good, I found it hard to stop eating. The great flavor also limits the amount of salt you'll need. 

Question: When Portuguese men grow old, are they called, "Portugeezers?"

Ingredients:

1 chicken, butterflied (often small chickens, like Cornish hens, are used by the Portuguese)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Spanish paprika
8 to 10 piri piri in brine, along with a tablespoon or so of the brine.
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

This chicken is commonly grilled in Portugal, but you can roast it in a 400 degree (F) oven. Blend all ingredients, except chicken, to a consistency you like. I like chunky sauces, but most recipes I've seen for this make the sauce fairly smooth. Lay the butterflied chicken in a shallow dish and pour the sauce over it. Turn the chicken and thoroughly coat it. Cover the dish and refrigerate several hours, up to 12 hours. Reserve the excess marinade sauce to baste the chicken if you're grilling it. If you keep any of the sauce for serving, you must heat it, as it had been in touch with raw poultry. I roasted the chicken in the same pan I used to marinade it, along with the excess marinade, and I spooned some of the sauce over the chicken 3 times during the cooking process. I let the chicken roast for about 65 minutes, to let the skin begin to show some charring. 

WORD HISTORY:
Geezer-This word is distantly related to English "wise" and "wit," but especially to the use of  "wise" as a suffix (examples: "likewise, clockwise"). It goes back to Indo European "weid," which had the notion "to see;" thus, "to know how to go, proceed." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "wisaz," with the same meaning, and an altered form, "wiso," for a noun, with the meaning, "way, manner, custom, condition." ^ This gave Old Frankish, a Germanic dialect/language, "wisa," with the same meaning. This was borrowed/absorbed into Old French as "guise," with the same meaning, but including, "manner of dress," then later also, "manner of cover or cloak." This was borrowed into English in the latter part of the 1200s. From this was formed "guiser," meaning, "person in disguise, or wearing a mask." In London, some came to pronounce it as "geezer," and it simply meant, "a man" (during the 1500s?). In North America it took on the meaning "an old man" during the second half of the 1800s. It is an example of a Germanic word coming into English (a Germanic language) in an altered form from a non Germanic language.

^ The Germanic form gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "wise" (back then pronounced as today's word, but the ending "e" was pronounced "eh").