Yuzu Kosho Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce
The English Sunday roast meets Kyushu: a whole chicken rubbed under the skin with yuzu kosho, the fermented citrus and chilli paste, and served with a bread sauce that has been taught to carry the same fragrance. Homely and startling at once.
- 1 chicken, about 1.6 kg
- 2 teaspoons yuzu kosho (green)
- 40 g soft butter
- Sea salt
- 1 lemon, halved
- For the bread sauce: 400 ml whole milk
- 1 small onion, halved
- 3 cloves
- Zest of 1 yuzu (or 1 lime plus a strip of grapefruit zest)
- 80 g stale white bread, crusts off, torn
- 20 g butter
- Salt and white pepper
- The night before, if possible, unwrap the chicken and leave it uncovered in the fridge to dry the skin.
- Heat the oven to 220 C. Loosen the skin over the breasts and thighs and spread the yuzu kosho underneath. Rub the outside with the butter and salt, put the lemon halves in the cavity.
- Roast for 20 minutes, then lower to 180 C and roast for a further 50 to 55 minutes until the juices run clear at the thigh. Rest for 15 minutes.
- For the sauce, warm the milk with the onion, cloves and zest for 20 minutes without boiling. Strain, add the bread and butter, and stir over low heat until thick and soft. Season and add 2 tablespoons of the roasting juices.
- Carve the chicken and serve with the warm bread sauce.
Roast chicken is the dish every cook believes they already know, which is exactly why it rewards a new idea. Yuzu kosho is a paste from southern Japan made of yuzu zest, green chilli and salt, fermented until it becomes an electric, floral, hot condiment that Japanese cooks use by the pinhead. Rubbed under the skin of a chicken before roasting, it melts into the fat and perfumes the meat from inside; the skin above it crisps as usual and hides the surprise until the first slice.
Bread sauce, the milky, clove-scented English accompaniment that outsiders find baffling, turned out to be the perfect partner, because it is essentially a savoury custard designed to carry a spice. We infuse the milk with the pared zest of a fresh yuzu or, failing that, a lime and a grapefruit together, keep the clove, and finish with a little of the roasting juices. The sauce tastes like the chicken's own perfume made soft.
Getting the skin right
Dry the chicken uncovered in the fridge overnight if you can; dry skin crisps, wet skin steams. Loosen the skin over the breast and thighs with your fingers and push the yuzu kosho underneath, then rub the outside with soft butter and salt. Roast hot for the first twenty minutes and then lower the heat. Rest it for a full fifteen minutes before carving, tented, so the juices settle.
Serve with the bread sauce, roast potatoes and something green and sharp, such as watercress dressed with rice vinegar. A Riesling with a little residual sugar handles the chilli; so does a cold, dry sake.
