照り焼きChicken teriyaki

The name is tere-yaki: the shine and the grill. The chicken is poached gently in a thin soy-sake-sugar liquid until done — which is why it never dries out — and then the cooking liquid is reduced to a lacquer and the pieces turned in it until they hold the shine. The sauce is the recipe; the chicken is mostly in the way of the sauce.

Origin

Japan

Difficulty

2 / 5

Servings

2

Prep

5 min

Cook

20 min

Total

~25 min

Equipment

• 26 cm (10 in) heavy skillet or shallow pan, wider than tall
• Basting brush, or the back of a spoon
• Instant-read thermometer

Ingredients

• 400 g (about 14 oz) boneless chicken thigh, cut into bite-size pieces 4–5 cm across — or 2 whole thighs, skin-on, for a two-piece version
• 60 ml (4 tbsp) light soy sauce
• 45 ml (3 tbsp) sake (or mirin, or a 50/50 mix)
• 30 g (2 tbsp, packed) caster or superfine sugar — the caster dissolves in the cold liquid, which is the whole point of this recipe's sauce
• 15 ml (1 tbsp) water
• 10 ml (2 tsp) neutral oil, for the pan
• 5 g scallions, cut on the diagonal, for the top
• 3 g toasted white sesame seeds, for the top

Method

1. Mix the soy, sake, sugar, and water in the pan you'll cook in — in the pan, not a bowl — and stir just until the sugar disappears. You want a thin, clear liquid, not a syrup; that ratio is what the chicken is going to cook in, and the sugar's dissolving in it now is what keeps the finished glaze from being a separate step. Set the pan aside with the liquid in it and let the chicken come up to room temperature over the next five minutes.
2. Heat the pan over medium until the liquid is at a bare simmer — small bubbles at the edges, no rolling boil. Lay the chicken pieces in, skin-side down if you have skin, without crowding (they should be roughly a single layer). This is the poach stage: the liquid barely moves, the chicken cooks through in it. Simmer 6–8 minutes, turning once, until the center of the thickest piece reads 74 °C and the liquid has dropped to about half its volume. If you're doing whole thighs, the skin should be set and the meat just pulled away from the bone.
3. Now the reduction. The heat goes up a notch to medium-high, and the liquid goes from simmering gently to bubbling actively. This is where the 30 g of sugar is at the browning window — the pan is at about 140–160 °C, the sugar will caramelize, and the whole thing goes from "good" to "bitter" in the time it takes to read this sentence, so you are at the pan for this stage, not at the phone. When the liquid is reduced to about a third of its original volume and is starting to coat the back of a spoon, the shine is ready.
4. Turn the heat down to medium and turn each piece over in the glaze, spooning it over the top from the pan as you go. You're looking for each piece to be evenly coated in a dark, lacquered layer — this is the tere in teriyaki, the shine, and it's a visual, not a taste, cue: the sauce on the piece is dark amber, not golden, and it's thin enough to drip but thick enough to hold. Another 1–2 minutes of this, turning once or twice more if a piece isn't catching it, and the chicken's done.
5. Slide the pieces onto a plate, brush or spoon any last of the glaze off the pan over the top, and finish with the scallion and the sesame. Serve straight from the pan over a bowl of rice if you can be bothered to plate it, or straight off the plate.

What to serve with it

White rice, ideally still warm, with a good spoonful of the glaze spooned over it — the glaze on the grain is the part of the dish most people remember. A simple steamed green, or a cucumber salad with rice vinegar, does the job of cutting the sauce. If you have pickles (the Japanese style, takuan or pickled ginger on the side), they're the classic counterpoint. A cold draft beer or a pale rice wine both work; the dish is rich enough to carry either.