A mix of Asian ingredients create roasted chicken that is juicy, slightly spicy, tangy and a little sweet. Recipe below.
LOOK IN OUR FRIDGE AND PANTRY, AND YOU’LL FIND ASIAN INGREDIENTS GALORE. Some esoteric, but mostly basic things we use regularly. This easy chicken recipe calls for three of the latter, all from different parts of Asia. White miso paste from Japan, gochujang paste from Korea, and rice vinegar used throughout East and Southeast Asia—China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam… Which makes perfect sense since it comes from a lovely pan-Asian cookbook.
A Splash of Soy: Everyday Food from Asia is the second cookbook by Lara Lee, an Australian chef and food writer of Chinese-Indonesian heritage. It was published in 2023 by Bloomsbury. According to Lee, “it’s a book about Asian home cooking, done quickly with ease and minimal mess.” She goes on to say that adapting traditional Asian dishes and flavors is commonplace in Australia, where different food cultures have “mixed and influenced each other since the nation’s beginnings.”
In other words, how we like to cook at Blue Kitchen. In addition to the Asian ingredients above, Miso Gochujang Butter Chicken uses crushed red pepper flakes, honey, lemon juice and lots of butter. The end result is juicy, slightly spicy, tangy and a little sweet. You’ll note in the photo above, ours is quite charred. Lee’s own version is almost as charred, and that’s perfectly okay.
Miso Gochujang Butter Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 cup white miso paste
- 2 tablespoons gochujang paste
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- kosher salt
- lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF, with rack positioned in the middle.
- Make a thick marinade. Mix the softened butter, miso, gochujang, garlic, red pepper flakes, vinegar and honey in a measuring cup or bowl, using a fork to blend everything together.
- Line a large roasting pan with aluminum foil. Pat the chicken thighs dry with a paper towel or cotton cloth and place them skin-side down in the prepared roasting pan, then season them with salt.
- Using your hands, rub half of the marinade on the flesh side of the chicken only. Turn the thighs skin-side up and season with kosher salt (no marinade yet!). Roast for 20 minutes.
- Brush the rest of the marinade on the skin side of the chicken. Don’t use your hands this time—the roasting pan and chicken are hot. We used a fork and a silicone basting brush. Return to the oven and roast another 15 to 20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through (an instant read thermometer should read at least 165ºF in the thickest part of the thigh).
- To finish, set your broiler to high and broil the chicken for 1 to 3 minutes, so that the skin and sauce brown (or char, as ours did—we did 3 minutes, so start with 1). Transfer chicken to a platter and squeeze a little lemon juice over it and serve.