In search of a variation of the idea of coronation chicken – cold chicken in a creamy mayo sauce with spices and dried apricots – I turned my eyes eastwards and came up with this alternative with an Asian slant. In a word: miso.

The dark and mysterious flavour of miso adds a touch of enigmatic class to mayonnaise. To make the sauce just a little more Japanese in profile, I also used Kewpie mayonnaise, a product that is favoured by many chefs for its distinctive flavour. It is available from the Asian sections of supermarkets.

Miso is a fermented paste of soybean with salt and other ingredients, which can include seaweed, barley or rice. Most famously, it is used for Japan’s staple miso soup, which also contains dashi, a basic Japanese range of stocks.

Note: Kewpie mayo contains MSG.

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

1 cup leftover cooked chicken, diced

2 spring onions, finely chopped

2 cm peeled ginger, grated

1 medium red pepper, diced

1 medium green pepper, diced

For the sauce:

1 cup Kewpie mayonnaise

⅓ cup miso paste

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp chilli paste or sambal oelek or Forage and Feast chilli oil from Checkers

½ tsp sesame oil

For the couscous:

100 g couscous

130 ml hot water

⅓ cup lemon juice

¼ cup chopped coriander

Method

Add the sauce ingredients to a bowl and stir in the diced chicken.

Stir in the spring onions, ginger and diced red and green pepper.

Pour the couscous into a bowl and add 130 ml hot (not boiling) water. Cover and let it stand for five minutes.

Fluff the couscous with a fork to separate all the grains.

Stir in the lemon juice and finely chopped coriander. DM

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.