Baked Miso Chicken

We realized that we don't cook enough recipes from our fellow bloggers' sites. I mean all those great recipes you all post and we rarely experiment with them! So Michael was browsing around the other day on some of your blogs and found a yummy looking miso chicken recipe by Mary at One Perfect Bite. Check out her site if you haven't, she's got some really great posts. We modified her original recipe just a bit. If you do decide to try this recipe, you might have trouble finding miso. We found some at Harris Teeter, but it was 7 bucks for a tiny tube! We are lucky enough to have an Asian food mart nearby and Michael picked up a tub of it for $2.50. Much better deal. However, now we have this giant tub of pasty looking miso so we need something else to do with it... any suggestions? Mary's original recipe says to marinate the chicken for 3 hours, but we made it on a weekday so just marinated it all day (12 hrs) and it turned out fine. We actually made the marinade the night before so we just had to throw it in a bag with the chicken the next morning, come home & toss it in the oven for a quick supper! Serves 4-6.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup mirin
• 1/2 cup miso
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• 2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 6-8 (about 2-lbs.) boneless chicken thighs
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Directions

1. Combine soy sauce, mirin, miso, onions, ginger and garlic in a small bowl. Divide marinade into 2 parts. Pour half into in a one-gallon zip-lock bag. Shake to mix well.
   
2. Add chicken pieces and coat well. Refrigerate for 8-12 hours. Refrigerate reserved marinade in a separate container.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
4. Remove chicken from marinade and pat dry with paper towels.
5. Arrange chicken pieces in a single layer on a large rack set over a baking pan. Cook for 30 minutes. Brush with reserved marinade.
6. Transfer chicken to a serving platter and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. Yield: 4 to 6 servings.