Miso Chicken with Greens & Sesame Rice

Ingredients

• 8 skinless boneless chicken thighs
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 25g ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp white miso
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 250g basmati rice, rinsed
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced, whites and greens separated
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 320g tenderstem broccoli, trimmed
• 2 pak choi, thickly sliced
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 lime, cut into wedges
• pickled cucumber, to serve
• kimchi, to serve

Method

1. Whisk the miso with the soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, half the grated garlic, half the ginger and 1 tsp of the sesame oil. Rub it all over the chicken thighs, season with a pinch of salt and a good twist of pepper, and leave them to sit while you get everything else moving — even 15 minutes makes the glaze cling.
2. Cook the rinsed rice in plenty of boiling water until tender, 10–12 minutes, then drain well and leave it covered off the heat for 5 minutes. That rest is what gives you separate grains instead of a claggy mound.
3. Get a large stainless or cast-iron frying pan properly hot — a drop of water should skitter and vanish. Toss the broccoli with a pinch of salt and lay it in the pan in a single layer. Cook undisturbed for 4–5 minutes until the stems are tender and the florets are catching dark at the edges. Don't crowd it; if your pan is small, do it in two batches or you'll steam the greens instead of charring them.
4. Add the pak choi and the white parts of the spring onions with the remaining 1 tsp sesame oil. Stir-fry for 2 minutes, just until the leaves collapse and the stems still have bite. Lift everything onto a plate, season with black pepper and another small pinch of salt, and wipe the pan if it looks scorched.
5. Turn the heat to medium, lay the chicken in the same pan in a single layer — again, two batches if it's tight, because crowded thighs braise in their own juice instead of taking on colour. Cook 6–7 minutes a side until mahogany in patches, sticky and cooked through (juices run clear, 75°C at the thickest point). If the glaze starts to catch hard, splash in 2 tbsp of water to loosen it back into a glossy coating rather than a burnt crust. The remaining grated garlic in the marinade is on the chicken — keep an eye on it; once it smells properly fragrant and turns pale gold, you're there. Push past that and it goes bitter.
6. Lift the chicken out to rest. Splash 2 tbsp water into the hot pan and swirl for 20 seconds, scraping up the sticky brown bits — that's your pan sauce. Spoon it back over the chicken so the glaze becomes a sauce, not a paste.
7. Fluff the rested rice with the remaining grated ginger, the green parts of the spring onions and the toasted sesame seeds. Taste it — adjust with a pinch of salt if it needs lifting; most of the seasoning lives in the chicken and its juices, but the rice should still taste of itself.
8. Pile the sesame rice into four bowls, lay the greens alongside, and slice the chicken over the top. Spoon over the pan sauce, tuck a lime wedge into each bowl for squeezing at the table, and finish with a generous spoonful of kimchi and a few slices of pickled cucumber on the side.