Portuguese Spices: Piri-Piri, Massa de Pimentão, Garlic, Bay, Cilantro and Cinnamon

The Portuguese reached the Banda Islands, the source of nutmeg, in 1512, and occupied Sri Lanka, the home of true cinnamon, in 1536. So you might expect their food to be especially hot and heavily spiced. It isn’t. It leans hard on a few seasonings instead: red pepper in two forms (fiery piri-piri and the sweet paste massa de pimentão), garlic, white wine, bay leaf and fresh cilantro (coentros).

At a glance

Piri-piri

Piri-piri (or peri-peri) is the name of a chile and of what’s made with it. The Dictionary of South African English defines the noun as a hot sauce of red chiles, peppers and lemon juice, or a seasoning of powdered red chiles. It calls the word’s origin obscure: perhaps Swahili pilipili, perhaps Mozambican Portuguese, possibly Arabic further back.¹

Which chile counts as piri-piri is less settled than a lot of recipes let on. Katzer lists piripíri among the Portuguese names for chiles, and writes that in Portugal and its former East African colonies, peri peri is the name for a bell-shaped type of Capsicum baccatum.² You’ll often read that piri-piri is always a small bird’s eye type, or one particular species. The sources we opened don’t back that up. What’s certain is that all chiles came from the Americas. The most common species, Capsicum annuum, was domesticated in Mexico.³

Heat depends on the chile. DeWitt’s heat scale puts “African birdseye” chiles at 100,000 to 500,000 SHU,⁴ but that’s a category, not a measurement of Portuguese piri-piri. See cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes.

Massa de pimentão and colorau

Teleculinária’s carne de porco à alentejana, the Alentejo dish of pork and clams, marinates the pork in garlic, white wine and colorau (paprika), and uses three tablespoons of massa de pimentão, a red pepper paste.⁵ Sweet red pepper carries this dish, not hot chile. See paprika, paprika vs. cayenne and smoked paprika, the Spanish smoked version.

Garlic and white wine

Garlic and white wine are the base of lots of Portuguese marinades. That same recipe uses four cloves of garlic and 200 ml of white wine for 700 g of pork.⁵ See garlic.

Bay leaves

Bay laurel is native to the Mediterranean. Teleculinária’s notes suggest marinating the pork in garlic, bay leaf, white wine and a touch of sweet paprika. See bay leaves, cooking with bay leaves and too much bay leaf.

Cilantro (coentros)

Fresh cilantro goes on to finish Teleculinária’s carne de porco à alentejana. See cilantro and cooking with cilantro.

Cinnamon

In Portugal cinnamon shows up mostly in desserts, like rice pudding (arroz doce) and custard tarts. You’ll often hear that pastéis de nata are traditionally dusted with cinnamon, but we couldn’t find a source for it. Portugal’s part in cinnamon’s history is clearer: the Portuguese occupied Sri Lanka in 1536, and the Dutch took over the trade in 1656.⁶ See cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon and Ceylon vs. cassia cinnamon.

Related pages

• Spanish spices, Brazilian spices and South African spices
• Garlic powder vs. garlic
• The master list of herbs and spices