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Miso Chicken with Walnuts and Grapes

This dish is a fine example of Yottam Ottolenghi's keen eye for unexpected but dazzlingly good flavour combinations.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Miso and sunflower share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 10 recipes mention both. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Cook2 hr

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Season the chicken thighs generously with sea salt and white pepper and pat them dry with paper towels.

  2. Heat the sunflower oil in a large ovenproof pan over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken skin-side down for 6 to 8 minutes, then turn and brown 2 minutes more. Transfer to a plate.

  3. Peel the root ginger and grate it finely. Whisk together the white miso, grated ginger, mirin, maple syrup, 3 tbsp cider vinegar and 3 tbsp water in a bowl.

  4. Reduce the heat to medium. Melt 1 tbsp of the butter in the pan, add the shallots and cook 5 minutes until golden. Add the white wine, the remaining 3 tbsp cider vinegar and 3 tbsp water, and simmer 3 minutes.

  5. Stir the miso mixture into the pan. Return the chicken skin-side up, spooning the sauce over. Roast uncovered for 35 minutes, basting once halfway through.

  6. Scatter the walnuts in a dry pan and toast over medium heat for 4 minutes, shaking often, until fragrant. Cool and roughly chop.

  7. Add the grapes to the pan around the chicken and roast 15 minutes more, until the chicken reaches 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part and the juices run clear.

  8. Transfer the chicken to a warm platter and rest 10 minutes. Stir the remaining butter into the pan juices, season with salt and pepper, and spoon over the chicken.

  9. Scatter the toasted walnuts and chopped tarragon over the chicken and serve warm.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Miso + sunflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  2. Cider + white winetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Sunflower + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. White wine + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cider + grapetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexan-1-ol (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, miso, ginger, cider, vinegar, sunflower, white wine):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Onionbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, miso, ginger, cider, vinegar, sunflower, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).