Cooking Japanese is easy!!

And now for something completely different!!

I’ve started doing a bit of Japanese cooking at home (Cafe 91!) and rather than buying things like teriyaki sauce pre-made I’ve started from scratch and it’s fairly simple stuff.

Well the teriyaki sauce was but the tempura batter wasn’t as simple haha.

Of course you need the right ingredients but for teriyaki sauce there are only 4: soy sauce, sweet cooking wine (mirin), cooking sake (ryorishu) and brown sugar.

And there’s is a great cookbook available Sachie’s Kitchen by well-known chef Sachie Nomura which you can buy from Cook the Books

So my teriyaki recipe is “borrowed” from Sachie’s Kitchen but I’m sure she won’t mind as I’m promoting her book!!

So you can get the mirin and ryorishu from either Japanese Lifestyle at 75 Dominion Road or Japan Mart   435 Khyber Pass Rd Newmarket. Both are handy enough to Ponsonby. Better range at Japan Mart. Easier to get to and better parking at Japanese Lifestyle.

So here’s the recipe for the sauce for teriyaki chicken.

75ml mirin; 75ml cooking sake; 75ml soy sauce; 35g brown sugar

Mix these ingredients in a small pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes. Set aside.

Using chicken breasts or thighs (I cut the breasts length-wise into schnitzel size – about 20mm thick), dust them with flour and cook them for 2 to 3 mins each side. Then add the teriyaki sauce and cook until thickened and lightly caramelised. Garnishing with toasted sesame seeds gives a nice flavour boost. Serve with rice, noodles or stir fry vegies. Not a bad thing in the whole dish. 10 mins prep, 10 mins cooking. The trick is to get the sauce to caramelise.

This time I did a stir fry with udon noodles to go with it.

Here we are all plated up. Deb’s in a bowl. Mine on a plate. Funny old preferences.

I promise you that you will enjoy the nicest teriyaki chicken ever. Deb said it was better than R….n!! I thought it was sensational.

There’s more to come in this new menu/recipe series. I’ll be featuring dishes and meals that you can easily cook at home. Nothing too complicated. No processed food, no preservatives, no MSG. And I’ll aim to present ideas that will take less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook.

Now where’s that recipe for tempura batter so I can have another go!!!