Linda W.’s Daughter’s Miso Chicken Recipe

My friend, Linda Walkem, would be embarrassed if I revealed her full name as the source of this recipe, so I’ll refer to Linda Walkem only as Linda W. to preserve Linda Walkem’s anonymity. 

Five or six years ago, my friend Linda W. gave me her daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe. I wanted to make this dish right away because Linda W. has always said her daughter’s a great cook. Naturally, I lost Linda W.’s daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe almost immediately, and forgot to tell Linda W.

Five or six years is a long time. I seem to recall that Linda W.’s daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe was “paleo.” I’d always assumed paleo was a game Prince Charles and his pals played on horseback, but Google set me straight: 

“A paleo diet is a dietary plan based on foods similar to what might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era, which dates from approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.”  

Some of the food in my fridge is definitely that old, so this recipe probably qualifies. Hurray, because Linda W.’s daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe recently resurfaced in my sock drawer.

This recipe requires a large whole fryer or roasting chicken, some miso paste, puréed peaches, and applesauce. 

How difficult can that be? Still, I fretted about the recipe’s instructions to broil the chicken until slightly browned; transfer it to a slow cooker for three hours on “low”; and then leave it in the slow cooker for two more hours on “warm.”

Let’s just say visions of pathogens danced in my head. Forget the broiler: Leaving the chicken on “low” for three hours and two more hours on “warm”?  I was nervous. 

I asked my friend Lorna’s opinion, but she hadn’t used her slow cooker in awhile. Lorna asked her daughter, Arlette, who’s never cooked a roasting chicken and didn’t know, either. 

Linda W. didn’t know, and asked her daughter, who didn’t answer. So Linda W. sent her daughter a second email. Linda W. cc’d me on that email, headed “Miso Soup.” 

“This isn’t a soup recipe - it’s a chicken recipe!” I emailed Linda W. in frustration.

Snapped Linda W. back: “What chicken?” 

I was now very nervous (even more so than during the Clam Chowder Incident, when Electrocution by Clams seemed inevitable). Compared to that little fiasco, Linda W.’s daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe was a piece of cake ...(Orange Sponge Cake, being the exception).

I’d bought the peaches and the applesauce and the miso, and had a honking big roasting chicken dripping salmonella all over the kitchen counter. Linda W. and Linda W.’s daughter said they’d never heard of Miso Chicken. More to the point, they said they’d never cooked it. 

Linda W. and Linda W.’s daughter knew nothin’ ’bout nuthin’. This was not encouraging.

Whimpering, I set out to make Miso Chicken on my own. Things did not go well. 

• Chicken spits and crackles under broiler.

• Smoke detector starts screaming. 

• Start screaming. 

• Run for ladder. 

• Cancel smoke alarm. 

• Stash ladder in cupboard.

• Race to remove chicken from oven. 

• Smoke detector renews screaming. 

• Instantly forget chicken. 

• Grab ladder. 

• Disconnect alarm. 

• Smoke detector falls on floor. 

• Ladder collapses. 

• I crash to ground. 

• Limp into kitchen. 

• Chicken burns with enthusiasm.

• Extract chicken from oven. 

• Curse Linda W.’s daughter’s Miso Chicken recipe. 

• Curse pathogens.

• Bake chicken in regular oven.

“New recipe?” asks Ron.

“Shad-dup,” I say.