Sweet Miso and Lemon Chicken
This chicken tastes delicious, savoury, slightly lemony, juicy and very morish. Don’t be put off by the title of Sweet as it’s not sweet at all. Sweet miso just means it’s a soya-rice paste that is relatively sweeter, lighter both in taste and colour to the other stronger darker miso used often in soups, noodle, brasing dishes. If you taste sweet miso raw it tastes really strong, salty and not that pleasant, certainly not sweet, but even just mixed with lemon it adds a lovely savouriness to a chicken.
I first came across this marinade when watching an Australian program called Food Safari, this recipe is on the site under the name of Saikyo Yaki, you’ll see in the video clip being made by the Japanese chef Tetsuya Wakuda, who says this is a very traditional Japanese recipe going back hundreds of years.
What made me add the lemon to the sweet miso marinade was looking through Mr Foodie’s blog under his review for the Roka Japanese Restaurant in London, he had a picture of Grilled Baby Chicken with Lemon Miso that looked and sounded like a winning combination. I could pictured how it would taste; salty, tangy, savoury and slight sweetness to balance. Just looking at the photo made my mouth water. This has now become a family favourite.
The Sweet Miso
From searching around there are two types of sweet miso I can find, also referred to as white miso; one used on the Food Safari website called saikyo miso and the other is shiro miso which the Japanese Centre in London sell. Where I live I can only get what is described as Sweet White Miso, a pale creamy yellow colour, from Clear Spring, I can buy it in Sainsbury or the local health food shop.
When I asked Mr Foodie what the difference was between the saikyo miso and shiro miso he told me that, “saikyo miso is lighter in colour than shiro it has more rice & less salt u can substitute, just use a little less shiro + add mirin”. I have no idea which sweet miso the packet of Clear Spring contains but it doesn’t seem to make a difference when I added the ingredients roughly following the recipe from Tetsuya Wakuda on the Food Safari website.
Other Sweet Miso Recipes
I see many recipes for sweet miso marinades containing added sugar, but I can not bring myself to adding sugar when I think the recipe is already sweet enough. In this recipe I think the sweet cooking wine mirin brings enough sweetness. I have the same problem with making Teriyaki recipes, on top of the mirin I won’t add the extra sugar.
I’ve seen recipes for pork, chicken, fish, tofu and vegetables marinated in sweet miso.
Using a Whole Chicken
I’ve used a whole chicken spatchcocked because that’s how I saw the recipe in the Roka Restaurant review but it makes sense opening up the chicken, that way there’s more contact of the meat with the marinade. Use pieces of chicken if you prefer but with the skin on.
I’ve tried this marinade with different size chickens and with cornfed (my usual choice of chicken) and non-cornfed chickens. I tried my family size of 2kg (over 4 lbs) but I prefer to use small chickens just over a kilo about 1.2kg – 1.4kg (up to 3 lbs), they come out the most successful with nice skin, juicy meat but not too burnt.
I prefer non-cornfed chickens for this recipe because cornfed produce tougher thicker skin and this marinade is nicer on thiner skin when eating it. A wet marinade doesn’t do a tougher skin any favours when roasting it.
Stretching the skin with my fingers on the cornfed chicken below you can see how thick it is and you can’t see my fingers.
With the non-cornfed chickens it has a much transparent skin, even giving allowances for the different sizes (ages) of chicken the cornfed will have a slightly tougher skin.
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Sweet Miso and Lemon Chicken
I’ve used less of miso paste than the recipes I’ve seen around, I don’t think it needs more, you need to get your hands dirty by making sure the chicken is well covered all over, if that horrifies you use a pastry brush! The marinade really needs overnight or at least 12 hrs to marinate. For the whole family I use two chicken this size and double the ingredients, but only 1 1/2 of lemon rind.
- 1 chicken about 1.2kg – 1.4kg (2 lb 10 oz – 3lbs) spatchcocked
Marinade
- 125 grms / 1/2 cup of sweet white miso (shiro or saikyo miso)
- 1 tablespoon of mirin
- rind of 1 small lemon
- 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 1-1/2 teaspoon fresh root ginger grated
- 1 clove garlic grated or crushed – optional
- freshly grated black pepper – optional
For roasting;
- 1 cup / mug of water
- 1 piece of foil to cover chicken
- Mix the marinade ingredients and make sure to rub it all over the chicken getting it into all the corners. Leave it overnight.
- When you ready to roast pre-heat the oven to 190C / 170C fan / 374F / gas 5. Place the chicken breast side up on a baking dish or roasting tin that fits quite snug, if there’s too much room around the chicken the water will evaporate burning the marinade.
- Add the cup of water to the bottom, cover chicken loosely with the foil only for the first 15 mins of cooking and remove it after that. This helps to stop marinade from burning by the time the chicken is ready. Miso burns quite easily.
- Roast for about 1 hour and 15 mins. Baste the chicken twice during roasting, it will help give the chicken a lovely shiny glaze.
It’s easy to spatchcock a chicken with a very sharp knife, just cut down the back along side the central backbone all the way through. Please don’t follow my example here of doing in a dish, so much safer putting the chicken on a chopping board!
Once you’ve cut the chicken all the way through the back you may have to just cut a little at the very top of the breast bone to help the chicken stay open or else use your hands to press down on it until you hear the breast bone give way.
Make sure the marinade is spread well all over every corner of the chicken, leave to marinade 12hrs – 24 hrs.
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