Week 10 of the 2020 Chicken Challenge: Chicken with Miso, Sweet Potatoes and Scallions

We're back cooking with Diana Henry this week, this time out of her latest book, "From the Oven to the Table".    The concept of this book is that you have one oven dish  - throw a bunch of stuff in - bake/roast - and that's dinner.   That concept gets two thumbs up from me.

Diana Henry being Diana Henry has an entire chapter on meals centered around bone in skin on chicken thighs.  (And yes....there are more chicken recipes scattered throughout the book as well).

I also realized after I made this that the other DH recipe I already made for this challenge was actually fairly similar to this one (Week 2's Vietnamese Ginger Chicken)....womp womp.   I'll make sure to do something very different from her next time (and there's plenty of that are different).

One thing I enjoy about DH recipes is the they do incorporate some ingredients that I wouldn't normally use but aren't necessarily hard to find.    This particular recipe uses miso paste - if you have a larger grocery store like a Wegman's or a local Asian grocery store, it's not hard to find at least some varieties of it (there are quite a few different ones).   I just ordered a tub off Amazon.

Miso paste is basically a fermented soybean product that adds a salty-savory-umami flavor to a dish and is widely used in Japanese cooking.  Ligher miso like the one I'm using here tends to have a sweetness to it and darker miso is richer and saltier.

This recipe came together fairly quickly.    Give the pan a little spritz of cooking spray (very important - you'll see why later).   I used my Aldi knock off of a Le Creuset enameled cast iron roasting pan again....love that pan.   I had one giant sweet potato that I peeled and cut into "wedges" which ended up more like thick cut fries, which go in into the pan.

For the chicken, I used 2 chicken leg quarters for no particular reason other than I had them and that's what I pulled out of the freezer.

You then make a marinade out of a couple of ingredients:

2 tablespoons white miso paste
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 tablespoon temari/dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
3 garlic cloves, grated finely

I tweaked DH's ratios a little bit here because I was only doing 2 servings but the leg quarters were on the larger side.    The recipe also calls for using sake, which I really don't keep on hand, but offers dry sherry as an alternative, which I did have.   I opted to leave out the fresno chili (with seeds) that DH calls for because hubs is still not feeling 100% so nothing too spicy on the menu.

I used a Microplane grater for both the garlic and the ginger - this is one of the MVP's in my kitchen.   Any time you need something finely minced or zested, use a Microplane - it does the job far more evenly and quickly than I can do with a knife.   It's such a great tool.

You just add all your ingredients to a bowl and stir to mix.

Take the sweet potatoes and mix with some of this seasoning mix and spread out in the pan, then smear the rest of the seasoning paste over the chicken leg quarters and into the pan with them.    Just a note....DH says that the chicken and sweet potatoes should be in 1 layer, so if you really wanted to do that, use a sheet pan.   Even with cutting the serving size down for 2 people, I wasn't really able to do that in this pan.

These get roasted in a 400F oven for about half an hour.  

Meanwhile, trim a handful of scallions - I used about 6 as the hubs isn't a fan of them - but leave whole.

Also, make a glaze to add to the chicken, whisking together:

1 tablespoon white miso paste
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 tablespoon temari/dark soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon dry sherry

After the chicken has been roasting for half an hour, add the scallions to the pan, shuffle around the sweet potatoes around a bit to make sure they're cooking evenly, and pour the glaze over the chicken leg quarters.    Put the pan back into the oven to roast for another 15-20 minutes, until cooked through and looking lovely.

Yum!    DH says to make some stir fried veggies to go with this, and I was too lazy - I just steamed some broccoli, tossed it with a little toasted sesame oil, and then drizzled it with some of the pan drippings.  

I'll point out - notice how the marinade burned to the pan around the edges?    This is why it's important to spray the pan with a little cooking spray - partly because the sweet potatoes didn't stick too much (they did a bit because of the glaze), but the pan came clean easily with a 15 minute soak in hot water and dish soap.

Look how gorgeous that came out!

The chicken was very flavorful and juicy.  The skin was more sticky-caramelized than crisp because of the glaze and marinade.   The sweetness from the honey was very mild - the garlic, ginger, and other seasonings really balanced that out.    

I kept thinking that I'd want rice with this dish to drizzle some of those lovely pan drippings on, but the sweet potatoes were surprisingly wonderful with this flavor combination.   This is one of the reasons I so like Diana Henry recipes - she suggests something different, like using the sweet potatoes, that I would not have done and they come out delicious.    

However, I was not a fan of the roasted scallions - I find scallions when whole tend to be very fiberous and unpleasantly chewy.  I would have preferred them sliced thinly and scattered on instead of roasted whole.   

Overall Rating:  8 out of 10.    This was very tasty and well balanced.   The unusual addition of the sweet potato was surprisingly delicious.

Ease of Preparation:   9 out of 10.   The recipe contains a couple things you probably have to make sure you have on hand ahead of time, but the overall recipe is simple and comes together easily. 

Will It Freezer Meal?     You could toss the chicken with the marinade and then freeze it, with the glaze on the side, to make for an easy dinner.    The sweet potatoes won't freeze raw.