Cooking a chicken, I start it breast side down and turn it part-way through, but here, because this tends to dislodge come of the coating, I make life simpler, and cooking time shorter, by spatchcocking the bird. If you are not familiar with the term, it involves the simple operation of cutting alongside the chicken’s spine with shears, and opening it like a book so that it can be placed on an oven tray with both the breast and the back uppermost. This allows us to avoid turning the chicken over, though it may profitably be rotated, especially in an oven tending to be uneven in its temperature.
The rest is simple. Rub the skin with oil, I use virgin olive oil (extra virgin offering nothing extra in cooking) but sesame oil will add an extra dimension, whilst quieter oils such as grapeseed or sunflower seed allow the tea to shine through.
For tea, I use a Japanese summer-picked tea from Kyushu, guricha, literally “curly tea”. It is much the same as “tama ryoku cha” (jewel green tea) or “bancha” (coarse tea), though not the roasted styles that share that name. I grind a greater proportion of tea to sea salt in a pestle and mortar or suribachi (grooved Japanese mortar) to a fairly fine mix.
This blend is rubbed onto (and inside) the oiled chicken as thickly as the viscosity of the oil allows. Slip the chicken onto a rack in a roasting dish and into a pre-heated oven, hot as possible. This crisps the skin, aided by the salt, and releases toasty, green tea aromas. Cook until done.
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Alex Fraser runs east teas, now relocated in the new Jubilee Market of Borough Market, London, on Fridays 12-6 and Saturdays 9-4. Contact via epoch@eastteas.com.
