Misoyaki Roast Chicken with Shoyu Onion Sauce

for the chicken

• 3.5 pounds chicken
• 1/2 cup red miso paste
• 1/2 cup mirin

for the onion sauce

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1 clove of garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup miced onion

1. Mix the mirin into the miso paste to loosen it up until you get something like the consistency of a gravy or a fresh banana smoothie. Some miso pastes are thicker than others, so if it’s too thick, just add more mirin. Easy beans.
2. Smother the chicken with the marinade all over, be especially sure you cover the inside cavity too. This way the marinade flavors the chicken from both the inside and out, huzzah.
3. Put the chicken in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or if you have a Ziploc and/or Glad bag big enough for a whole chicken, that is most preferred. Park it all in the fridge and let sit for at least three hours, overnight would be nice.
4. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
5. Take the chicken out of the fridge and take a spoon, fork, knife, dowel rod, comb, whatever your scraping tool of preference is, and wipe off the excess marinade, it’ll just burn~
6. Don’t run the chicken under water or anything though, just make sure there aren’t large clumps of marinade plopped on the bird.
7. Brush on some vegetable oil or melted butter over the chicken, nestle it in a roasting pan, and throw it in the oven.
8. Roast at 450 degrees for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350, and roast for an additional 40.
9. IN THE MEANTIME…. Make the ONION SAUCE.
10. In small sauce pan, sweat the ½ cup of minced onion in a bit of vegetable oil or butter.
11. When they start to become translucent, add the water, mirin, soy sauce, and grated garlic.
12. Bring to a simmer, turn the heat down to low and let bubble while the chicken cooks.
13. 5 minutes before the chicken’s done, sprinkle on some mirin. It gives the bird a delightful shine and sweetness. When time's up, take it out of the oven, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil, and let rest for 10 minutes.
14. IN THE MEANTIME, we finish the sauce.
15. Melt in a tablespoon of butter, and take it off the heat.
16. Mix in the tablespoon of miso. Miso actually loses its flavor the more it’s heated, so do this off the heat. There’s plenty of residual heat in the pan to melt down the miso paste.
17. ALAS, Carve the chicken, serve atop a bed of fluffy white Japanese short grain rice, ladle on the onion sauce, and have a delightful evening~