Whole Young Chicken with Cucumbers
This recipe calls for a young chicken aka poussin, which is the butcher’s term for a young chicken, less than 28 days old at slaughter and usually weighing up to 500 grams. The young chicken meat has a delicate flavor and is tender and succulent in texture.
Enjoy this delicious while young chicken recipe!
Whole Young Chicken with Cucumbers
Ingredients
Pickled Cucumber
- 1 cucumber
- 1/4 cup dark Japanese soy sauce
- 1/3 cup mirin
- 1/4 lemon juice
- 1/4 orange juice
- 4 tablespoons kimchi sauce
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
Young Chicken Marinade
- 5 ⅔ oz sweet miso
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
- 2 tablespoons sake
- 2 tablespoons mirin
- 2 tablespoons yamasa soy
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Peel the cucumber and cut lengthways in half. Take out all seeds with a spoon. Slice into 1cm (0.4 inch) thick slices to make nice half-moon shapes.
- Mix the dark soy sauce, Japanese rice vinegar, mirin, lemon juice, orange juice, kimchi sauce, sugar and sesame oil together and add your cucumber slices to the mix.
- Leave the cucumber to marinate for at least 6 hours.
- Mix all other ingredients together, except the young chicken, to form a paste.
- Smother the paste all over the young chicken so that it is nicely covered and place in a bowl or tray in the refrigerator.
- Leave it to marinate for at least 24 hours for maximum flavour.
- To cook, place under the grill in your oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius (355 Fahrenheit).
- Colour both sides until beautifully golden, approx. 5 minutes on either side.
- When finished, cut to make sure cooked well, if there are any signs of pink you will need to cook it for a few extra minutes.
- While the chicken is hot, cut into 6 pieces and arrange on a plate.
- Take some of the fresh cucumber pickles and arrange next to the chicken. You can also add a slice of lime as shown in the picture, a squeeze of the lime on the chicken will lift it into bliss.
Notes:
- *Ask your butcher to spatchcock the young chicken for you as this will save you the troubles of having to remove the bones yourself.
- You can find all of these ingredients at your local Japanese outlet.
- *For extra flavour, try making this on your charcoal BBQ, takes a little more care not to burn it but the results will be surely fantastic.
Notes
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