We've all heard about Teriyaki sauce, thanks to the fact that Japanese food delivery services are so prolific. But few of us thought about what its distinctive feature is and how it is made.
If you like its sweet-salty unusual taste and how the ready-made dishes shine from it, then we will tell you how to make this sauce at home and prepare the most popular dish with it - teriyaki chicken noodles.
Teriyaki
Yes, this is not a typo. If you read the Japanese characters, it turns out "teri" (shine) and "yaki" (fried). This is a special way of frying meat, poultry or seafood using sauce, which, as it were, caramelizes the ingredients due to the sugar in its composition. But when Japanese cuisine went beyond the borders of the land of the rising sun and became so popular, softened "teriyaki" came into use because of the difference in the linguistic system of Japanese and English. Therefore, the menu of Asian restaurants serves teriyaki chicken noodles, not teriyaki.
Initially, the sauce was made from soy sauce, sugar, rice wine or sake. In the western version, the alcohol content was removed and teriyaki with garlic and other additives more familiar to us began to be prepared.
Cooking Teriyaki
To prepare a more western, but no less authentic version of the sauce, we need ingredients that are sold in any supermarket: soy sauce, starch, granulated garlic, ginger root, liquid honey, six percent vinegar, sugar, sesame seeds.
If you have a thick soy sauce, then pour 100 milliliters of sauce and 300 milliliters of water into the stewpan. If the sauce is liquid, then 50 milliliters of water. Stir thoroughly until smooth, add a tablespoon of starch, granulated garlic and 200 grams of sugar. After everything is properly stirred, you can put the stewpan on medium heat and cook for five minutes, pouring a tablespoon of vinegar and throwing a small piece of peeled ginger root (so that later it is convenient to take it out). It is advisable to stir the brew so that everything probably dissolves. At the end, add sesame seeds to the resulting sauce and remove the container from the stove. Done! Now you can start cooking teriyaki chicken noodles. By the way, the sauce can be stored for a long time, if you pour it into a glass jar and put in the refrigerator.
Note that ready-made sauce is often sold in stores. We will not say that cooked independently and purchased are fundamentally different in taste and price.
Sauce variations
The teriyaki sauce recipe described above is perhaps the easiest and most modern. Ideally, instead of regular sugar, cane is used, which gives the sauce an even darker saturated color. And instead of the usual vinegar, they pour in wine. If you have rice wine on hand, then a couple of spoons will not hurt either. You can also add a little liquid bee honey and vegetable oil. By the way, you can replace ordinary potato starch with corn. This will change not only the taste, but also the overall consistency of the sauce.
Ready teriyaki can be flavored with anything. It is universal, suitable for any meat, poultry and seafood.
Cooking Teriyaki Chicken Noodles
To begin with, we need special noodles. Udon - wheat, or soba - buckwheat. The noodle recipe with teriyaki chicken and vegetables will be identical in both cases. The only difference is which of the above you prefer.
For cooking, you need to take the chicken fillet and cut it into small pieces (do not grind too much). Both the breast and the rest of the meaty part are suitable, but do not forget that the breast remains a priori quite dry. Fry the poultry meat over high heat until a crust is obtained and in no case salt it. When the chicken is browned, pour teriyaki sauce in it and reduce the heat. Stir until the pieces are caramelized.
Separately, fry bell pepper, carrots and onions, cut into strips. We also don’t salt, but a little teriyaki sauce will not hurt. When the vegetables are browned, pour them into the chicken. Some also add canned small ears of corn, but this is already a matter of aesthetics.
At the same time, we cook udon, after readiness we mix noodles with teriyaki chicken and vegetables. Keep on fire for a couple of moments, sprinkled with chopped green onions. That's all. Spread on plates. But do not forget to sprinkle the dish with sesame seeds before this. If you don’t like udon noodles with teriyaki chicken, be sure to try replacing it with yourself. Many note that buckwheat noodles have a more interesting taste and are most suitable for this dish.
Pickling
Many who like the sauce use it everywhere - they water the prepared dishes, for example. But another application is marinating meat. The sauce makes the meat very tender, penetrating into the fibers, it is better baked, and the kebab is excellent at all - it is quickly fried, acquires a unique taste and attractive appearance.