:minimalist

Thursday, July 29, 2010

 

Food! Teryaki chicken, to be precise. Here is everything you need, excepting cooking oil, two thin slices of ginger and some water:



Step 1: Heat about 2 T of oil (proportional to the amount of chicken you're using, of course), put the chicken in and pour soy sauce over it. What? You want measurements? I don't really do that... just don't put in too little. Or too much. A little more than what's pictured here (taken while still in the act of pouring more):



Step 2: Pour in sake and mirin (a sweet Japanese wine). Again, just do it in the right amounts (if I had to guess, I'd say .25-.33 c each).



Step 3: Sprinkle with a bit of sugar (maybe 1-2 T?) and put in the two slices of ginger. Add a bit of water to lengthen the cooking time and prevent burning. This sort of turns into a semi-braise.



Step 4: Cover tightly and cook over medium heat, removing cover occasionally to take pictures (pictures are optional).



Step 5: Turn occasionally as the liquid boils off and the sauce thickens.



Step 6: Take more pictures (optional).



Step 7: As the liquid continues to boil off, the sauce will thicken and darken, and the number of bubbles will reduce dramatically. The soy sauce, sake, and mirin get pulled out of the oil and onto the chicken, leaving just the oil behind.



The final color should look something like this.



What's left in the pot should be viscous oil speckled with suspended droplets of soy sauce.



Some tips: I've found that the heavy cast iron lid is really great and keeping the moisture in. It's easy for chicken to dry out, but the amount of cooking liquid combined with the heavy lid really allows the chicken to stay moist in this case.

When you add the soy sauce and alcohol, don't think of it as your cooking liquid. Otherwise, you'll be tempted to add too much because it will seem like not enough. Think in terms of how much soy sauce you want total in your dish. If you put in .50 c soy sauce, you're getting .10 c soy sauce per drumstick (or proportional to whatever you use). Is that a lot? You decide.

The water you add + water from the chicken will make it seem quite wet at the beginning. Don't worry, it'll all cook off. Be patient though, it can take awhile depending on how hot your stove is. Don't take the chicken out too soon, or you'll end up with watery, bland chicken. You really want it to get to the point where it thickens to coat the chicken.

You could probably do this with other types of meat as well. I'm not that adventurous, though I may try it with steak sometime (making the sauce separately without the additional water and pouring it over the steak instead of cooking them together).

If you try it, let me know how it goes.

bananna 5:34 PM  |