If you love Chicken Teriyaki, this recipe will not leave you indifferent. I was not much of a Teriyaki person for a long time myself, but I had to reconsider my preferences once Omar started liking it. Being a cook-from-scratch lady, I looked for the perfectly tender, delicious Chicken Teriyaki recipe for almost 2 years. After many trials and errors, mixing multiple recipes, the perfect Teriyaki Chicken was born!
In case you want to know what a perfect Teriyaki Chicken should look and taste like, follow me along:
- Tender
- Super tender
- Delicious
- You need to know what your Chicken Teriyaki consists of!
Oh well, it is not such a descriptive list, is it? But you get the idea. I confess! It is not the world’s easiest recipe! You need to have some time on your hands to fix it up. You cannot whip it up in 5 minutes. Not even in 5 hours! Thus, I make it only on the weekends. That’s when my husband can play “Need for Speed” with our little punks, leaving the premises of the kitchen to its Queen. Yeah, that’s me, alright! The marinade should stay in the refrigerator overnight! So, plan everything accordingly. Do not freak out :) It is much easier than it actually looks.
Does anyone like Sakkio, Sarku or Sakura Japan’s Teriyaki? This is the closest you can get! Enough talking, shall we get to work?
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients for the chicken marinade:
- 4 lbs of dark chicken meat (if you have a butcher shop near buy, you can get them easily. If you do not, then you have to buy some skinless chicken thighs, bone them, but do not trim off the fat. No swapping to chicken breast, as it is not going to come out good at all!)
- 3 cups of water
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 cup Kikkoman Soy Sauce
- 1/2 cup Sherry cooking wine or a 1/2 cup substitute which I use (which I will explain a little later)
Sherry Wine substitute:
Here is a good Sherry Wine substitute for those who do not want to get their chicken drunk :)
- 1/8 cup vinegar
- 1/8 cup water
- 1 tsp of sugar
Broth/soup for the sauce:
- Bones and trims of chicken
- 1 carrot cut in pieces
- 1 small piece of ginger
- 1 onion diced in four
- 2 cloves of garlic smashed
- 2 Tbsp of Kikkoman Soy sauce
- 2-4 oz cabbage
- 6 cups of water
Teriyaki Sauce:
It is not going to be your average, store bought Teriyaki sauce! Please do not opt for anything different. It is 60% stock based and you can make it at home, from scratch, like I do. If you do not have time, or do not want to deal with it, use pure, unsalted chicken broth instead.
- 3 cups of home made stock or store bought, no sodium chicken stock
- 1/5 cup Kikkoman Soy sauce
- 1/2 Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce
- 4 Tbsp light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp corn starch
- 1/5 cup cold water
Directions for chicken marinade:
Click on the images for a bigger view.
Cut the chicken in bite-size pieces together with the fat. Place the chicken in a large container. Mix the Sherry-Wine-substitute-ingredients, if you are using one.
Add water to the container with chicken, add Sherry Wine (or substitute). Add garlic powder, white pepper, oil and Soy sauce.
Put on a pair of gloves, mix all of the ingredients and start massaging the heck out of the chicken pieces. It usually takes me about 15-20 minutes. Once you are done, cover the container and place it in the refrigerator OVERNIGHT!
Broth directions:
If you are making the stock yourself, add whatever leftovers you have from the chicken. In a medium pot place chicken trims, bones, soy sauce, smashed garlic, carrots, onions, ginger root, cabbage and water. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down to medium-low, cover the pot with the lid and let it simmer OVERNIGHT! The smell is not one of the best smells in the world, but you can live with it for a short while :D
If you are using store-bought chicken broth, measure 2 cups of it, in a small saucepan bring it to boil, add a couple of very small slices of ginger root, tiny bit of minced garlic and cook for about 30 minutes. Fish out the ingredients, creating a nice golden broth.
In the morning, separate the stock from the remainingingredients. Discard the vegetables and all, leaving the stock.
You should have this amazing smelling soup (even if you are using the ready chicken broth), which is going to get mixed with these amazing Kikkoman sauces.
Measure out 2 cups of broth in a saucepan and bring it to slight a boil. Meanwhile, mix the starch in 1/5 cup of cold water and keep it aside until needed.
Add Teriyaki and Soy sauces, sugar (sorry, not picture of the brown sugar)into the slightly boiling broth, mix everything well and turn the heat down to medium-low.
The starch is added to the chicken to give it a saucy look. That’s how Japanese and Chinese get the consistency of the sauces they use for different dishes. Without starch our sauce is going to be watery and not much flattering. Add the starch mixture (give it a stir one more time before you add it). Mix the sauce very, very, very well to prevent any type of lumps! Give it thirty seconds or so to accept the starch and thicken up. Your sauce should ONLY be thick enough to leave a glaze on the spoon, or stick to the side of the pot if you splash a little bit of it – no thicker. Behold, you have a small piece of heaven in your kitchen!!! Remove the sauce from the heat and start working on the chicken.
Take out the chicken marinade from the refrigerator. This is the not the so much fun part! Oh, was it much fun all along though? :) But if you really like a challenge (please, do like a challenge) start mixing the chicken with the whisk. I do so by hand, since I do not have a standing mixer. But if you are lucky enough and have a mixer with a dough hook, let it do the work for you. The chicken/marinade mix needs to run at least for 30 minutes. You will know it is done because all of the fat will be separated to look almost like a fatty white snow. This step cannot me omitted! To have the perfect chicken, it has to be done this way, trust me!
Once you are done with mixing the chicken, it is time to start cooking it. There are two ways you can cook this chicken:
- Using a grill
- Using a skillet
Both cooking methods are good and the procedure is the same for both. Turn the heat up to maximum, spread just a little bit of oil on the surface, dump the portion of the chicken and let it cook 5 minutes on each side. Do not disturb the chicken while it is cooking. Once 10 minutes are up, slice the chicken with your spatula in bite size pieces. Pour some of the sauce over it, toss the chicken with the sauce once or twice…aaaaaaaand you are done!!!
Serve the chicken with rice and steamed vegetables. Pour some of the sauce on top of the chicken once you start serving. Believe me, this chicken is sooo good that the taste will stay in your mouth for a long time! Our whole family loves this Teriyaki Chicken and I’m sure yours will too!
Equipment Used
– Oxo Measuring Cup
– Shun 7″ Santoku Knife
– Nikon D700 DSLR
