Cinder House’s Orange Peri Chicken

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

While the cultural provenance of peri peri sauce is often debated, the combination of sweet, spicy, citrusy, and sour flavors has appealed across continents for centuries. Originally cultivated by Portuguese settlers in Africa, the bullet-shaped peri peri found its way to other Portuguese settlements, hence its connection to Brazil—and to St. Louis’ Cinder House restaurant, where chef de cuisine Pete Slay brines Amish chicken in a peri sauce made with fermented chiles, oranges, garlic, onion, and vinegar. The breast and boneless thigh portion is then pounded flat and grilled over Missouri oak before the cooked chicken is brushed with a sweetened peri sauce. Then comes a bed of creamy polenta, made from manioc (grated cassava), butter, and Parmesan. A frisée, watercress, and orange supreme salad tossed in a tart citrus (calamansi) vinaigrette adds contrasting flavors. Seasonal radishes add color and crunch to Slay’s Orange Peri Chicken. “It’s pretty hard not to appreciate a dish that’s traditionally spicy,” says Slay, “but also sweet, sour, bitter, crunchy, and creamy.”