A few weeks ago, I got an email from Dave at Nando’s Peri Peri.  It was a somewhat typical email from a company asking for a link.  Well, so far, my only links listed on the blog have been to non-commercial sites.  It was a nicely worded email, though, and not a form letter.  I replied that I didn’t want to start adding to my links with commercial links, but that, after looking at the website, the sauce sounded pretty good.

Dave turned around and very quickly sent out 3 bottles of Nando’s Peri Peri to me to try.  Nothing asked at all of me, just to try them.  Well, I first owe Dave an apology for not getting to them quickly enough, but I finally made time to try out the sauces.  I was a bit cautious, as I read something on their website about preferring gas grilling to charcoal, but I kept an open mind and went on!

I smoked some chicken thighs on Saturday to try out the sauces, which were Hot, Medium and Garlic.  I ended up grilling chicken yesterday, simply because the sauces were so good, I want to try them more!  I actually marinaded the chicken yesterday in the Garlic for a couple of hours before grilling. 

(Nando’s Peri-Peri Sauce graphic, from the website, used with permission)

So what is this stuff?  It’s based on the African Peri-Peri chili, or the African Bird’s Eye chili.  Nando’s Peri-Peri Chicken restaurants are all over the UK, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.  I hope they come to the US, soon, too.

My first impression when tasting the sauces was that they are really different from just a hot sauce.  They’re a bit thicker, and there’s more herb, lemon and garlic than I expected.  And all I could think was, ‘Wow, this is great stuff!". 

There’s a lightness to the taste, followed by some heat, but not too much (for the Medium and Garlic… The Hot can get to you!).  I’m not a fan of lemon, but the blend is well done, and doesn’t scream lemon; it mixes really well with the sauce.  On chicken, this is great stuff.  In fact, I’ve decided to take some to our next competition and potentially use it either in a sauce or just as the sauce itself.

This was a great surprise all around, as so many hot sauces are just hot and that’s all you get from them.  This will be a staple in my pantry from now on, I’m sure.