One Saturday a month, my friend volunteers to feed the homeless in Fremantle. She told me that they often receive donations of food from restaurants and bakeries. One such kind donor is a Nando’s store. Their donations vary but there could be anywhere from 10-20 chickens in one go. They would come already cooked and still frozen and I nominated my husband to do the cooking this time. While we appreciate the more spicy levels of Nando’s, we knew that our clientele would prefer the mildest lemon and herb marinade so I set about making my copycat version while studying the ingredient list at the back of the official lemon and herb marinade sauce bottle.
The plan was to defrost the chickens, foil wrap them in my copycat lemon and herb marinade, bring them up to temperature in the oven (i.e. my husband’s big smoker) and finally, finish them off by grilling on charcoal for that quintessential Nando’s chargrilled flavour. It was a success and the chicken remained moist and juicy. This marinade batch makes A LOT so you can freeze them for later.
Don’t be scared if your lemon and herb marinade tastes “spicy” before you thicken and cook it further. The flavour absolutely mellows out … unless you use a more spicy chilli variety.
While we have used the marinade to “finish off” already-cooked chicken, you can also use it to marinade fresh chicken (preferably overnight) before grilling it to perfection. You may even want to try cooking it in the oven before grilling it to keep it super juicy.
Makes approximately 1.5-2L batch
Prep time 20mins
Cook time 20 mins
Ingredients
1 onion, quartered
130g vinegar
100g sugar
100g lemon juice
75g neutral oil (e.g. sunflower oil)
8 cloves garlic
50g tamari
2 tbsp salt
150g rice flour
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup coriander, chopped
3 bird’s eye chillis
2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp honey
1.3L water
Blend all the ingredients except water in a blender until smooth.
Tip the blended sauce into a large saucepan, add the water and stir on medium heat until thickened, stirring continuously. It took me approximately 10-15 minutes.
Let it cool and use as required for your marinade.
More Marinades and Rubs
- Homemade Nanod’s Peri Peri Chicken Spice Rub
- Summer Sizzler Spice Seasoning
- Tennessee Smoky Spice Rub
- Xinjiang Cumin Lamb Skewers
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