Piri Piri Chicken

Cut the lemon in half to get it ready for juicing.

Peel the garlic cloves.

Slice away the stem and then slice the jalapeño in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds. Chop up the jalapeño roughly.

Similarly, slice the bell pepper in half through the stem, remove the stem and seed packet, and chop it up roughly.

Pour the olive oil into a blender or small food processor.

Add the peeled garlic cloves.

Add the dried oregano.

Add the paprika.

Add the red wine vinegar.

Squeeze in the juice of the lemon. Watch out for those seeds.

Add a teaspoon of salt.

Pulse to chop.

Add the jalapeño.

Add the chopped bell pepper.

Pulse to chop to a chunky puree.

Remove your chicken from packaging and remove the giblets if present. Arrange the chicken on a cutting board. You'll need a pair of scissors or a sharp and heavy knife.

Slice to one side of the backbone, starting at the tail. You will encounter some resistance as the knife passes through the ribs and hip joint. For this reason, scissors can sometimes be a safer and more comfortable option for this step.

Once you've cut the backbone free on one side, you will be able to fold the chicken opened.

Cut along the other side of the backbone to remove it. You can discard the backbone, but it does make a great addition to a stock pot if you want to make some stock or broth. At this point, you can simply flip the chicken over and cook it as you please but I like to do a couple more little detail tasks to clean it up more neatly.

There's often some extra fat around the cavity. Slice this off and discard, or you can toss it in a pan over medium low heat to render the chicken fat which has all kinds of wonderful applications.

Carefully slice under the rib cage on both sides of the breast. Remove and discard the ribs.

At the collar of the chicken you will find some loose bones. Two bones at the back can be removed by pulling them away from the flesh and twisting them free of their joint. Towards the front of the neck, the wishbone is embedded in the breast. You can feel it if you pinch at the neck side of the breast. You can remove the wish bone by slicing it out of the flesh and pulling it from its anchor points at the shoulders.

Bisecting the center of the chicken is the breast bone. The breast bone is fragile, mostly made up of cartilage. Slice through the center of the bone without slicing too deeply into the breast. You don't want to slice the chicken in half here.

Flip the chicken over and remove the wings by slicing between the wing and the drummie.

Preheat oven to 450°F

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Coat the chicken evenly in piri piri, back and front. It's a good idea to let the chicken sit at room temp for 30 minutes or so to marinate or leave it in the fridge overnight. But you can roast it immediately if you're in a hurry and it will still be delicious.

Roast for 35-45 minutes. FDA recommends an internal temperature above 165°F for chicken. The chicken will continue to cook after it is removed from the oven, so it should be safe to remove it at around 160°F and let it coast the last 5 degrees.

To serve a chicken like this, I like to separate it into neat portions. You can remove the legs by slicing between the thigh and breast. Separate the breasts by slicing between them.

There should be a fair amount of sauce that's shed from the chicken during cooking. After removing the chicken from it's baking dish, I like to scrape the dish and reduce this sauce over medium heat to be served alongside the chicken.