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Chicken teriyaki

The Tantalizing Taste of Teriyaki Chicken

Growing up, I never used to like mixing sweet with savory tastes. I have always associated sweetness with desserts and savory dishes with a meal. A cardinal rule I always had was that the different types of food on my plate should not touch each other because some minute part might end up mixing with another.

If they did, I would vehemently refuse to eat anything at all! Times have changed, and so have my eating habits. Nowadays, I don’t care if my whole plate looks like a jumble of an unimaginable mess just as long as it tastes good.

A good example of a sweet and savory dish that is one of my favorites, and is probably one of the reasons why I suddenly became a convert, is teriyaki chicken.

Teriyaki is commonly associated with many types of international cuisine nowadays, but it actually is a type of Japanese cooking. “Teri” in Japanese, means luster, while “yaki “means to boil or grill.

The ingredients of a Japanese teriyaki dish are usually marinated then roasted or broiled while being basted occasionally in the teriyaki sauce. It’s also the teriyaki sauce that makes the food shine and look more appetizing.

Teriyaki chicken grill with rice

Teriyaki sauce makes almost everything taste good. It makes bland food taste delicious. Teriyaki sauce is widely available as a bottled condiment in most oriental groceries, but authentic teriyaki sauce is very easy to make.

When I used to work in a Japanese restaurant, I remember preparing chicken teriyaki like there was no end to it. Every Monday, I remember signing for the delivery of chicken breasts. I would laboriously trim the fat off each piece of chicken. I’d then marinate them in the teriyaki sauce, and the customer had the option of adding some onions to make the chicken tastier. I would then prepare the teriyaki sauce, an old family recipe of my Japanese boss. Below is the teriyaki sauce recipe that makes everything it touches taste great.

Teriyaki Sauce (just mix all the ingredients):

1½ cups Sake
1 ½ cups Mirin
1 cup Soy Sauce
1 ¼ cups Sugar
1 ½ water from dried shiitake mushrooms
Ginger Juice to taste
Potato starch to thicken sauce

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Read all about Japanese immersion learning and studying abroad. Check out our eZasshi archives for more articles!