Harissa Gochujang Roast Chicken: Two Chilli Pastes, One Bird

Harissa and gochujang are both chilli pastes, and that is roughly where the similarity stops. Harissa is bright, garlicky and immediate, built on rehydrated dried chillies with caraway and coriander seed. Gochujang is fermented, thick, faintly sweet and slow to arrive.

Put them on the same chicken and each covers the other's weakness. As the record on harissa sets out, it comes from the Maghreb with its strongest ties to Tunisia, where it is treated as a national condiment. Carthage Magazine traces its arrival to the sixteenth century, when chillies reached North Africa after Spanish and Portuguese contact with the Americas and local cooks combined them with garlic, olive oil and their own spice traditions.

That history is a useful reminder that harissa is itself a fusion, roughly four centuries old. Adding a Korean fermented paste to it is not a violation of anything ancient. The fermented sugars in gochujang are also what make this work mechanically: they caramelise under heat into a genuine lacquer, which harissa alone will not do.

Ingredients

Serves 4. Total time: 1 hour 40 minutes, of which 20 is active. Allow 4 hours or overnight for the marinade.

• 1 whole chicken, about 1.6 kg, or 8 bone in thigh and drumstick pieces
• 2 tbsp harissa paste
• 2 tbsp gochujang
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp lemon juice, plus the spent halves
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1.5 tsp fine salt
• 500 g small potatoes, halved
• 1 red onion, cut into thick wedges
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• A handful of coriander leaves

Method

1. Whisk the harissa, gochujang, olive oil, honey, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, paprika and salt into a loose paste. It should be spreadable, not stiff. Loosen with a splash of water if needed.
2. Pat the chicken thoroughly dry. This matters more than any other step for crust. Rub two thirds of the paste all over, working some under the breast skin, and reserve the rest.
3. Refrigerate uncovered for at least 4 hours or overnight. Uncovered is deliberate: the surface dries and browns far better for it.
4. Take the chicken out 45 minutes before cooking. Heat the oven to 200C fan.
5. Toss the potatoes and onion in the reserved paste and spread them in a roasting tin. Sit the chicken on top, breast up, with the spent lemon halves in the cavity.
6. Roast for 55 to 70 minutes for a whole bird, or 40 to 45 for pieces. If the skin darkens too fast, tent loosely with foil. The sugars in both pastes brown early.
7. Check for doneness at the thickest part of the thigh: the juices should run clear and a thermometer should read 74C. Pull it as soon as it does.
8. Rest for 15 minutes before carving, uncovered so the crust stays crisp. Scatter with sesame seeds and coriander and spoon the pan juices over.

Why the dry brine does the work

The uncovered overnight rest is the step people skip and it is the one that decides how the skin turns out. Salt in the paste draws moisture out of the skin, that moisture dissolves the salt, and the resulting brine is slowly reabsorbed into the meat while the surface itself dries.