Its not hard, and it takes just 4 ingredients. Master this recipe, and you will have folks eating out of your hand!
I have a very definite idea of what Teriyaki chicken is – a delicious piece of skin-on chicken, grilled, with crispy skin and coated in a lovely marinate. Its should have a little pool of lovely sauce below it. No, it cannot be done in a microwave oven (I have seen it). And yes, it should have skin. Crispy skin.
Yes, you can buy ready made Teriyaki Sauce, but this recipe gives you control. If you make really good sauce, it makes a big difference. Folks will love your chicken.
I am talking about from scratch, like so:
With a bone-in chicken leg. You need the bones. And you need just three more things : Soya Sauce, Sake and Mirin. These will make the sauce.
So the ingredients list (for 2) :
- 2 bone-in chicken legs
- A good soya sauce (100 ml)
- Sake (100 ml)
- Mirin (100 ml)
On the ingredients – this is a simple dish, the ingredients will shine. For the soya, I like one that is not too salty but full of umami. There are some Singapore brands that are totally delicious and every bit as good as the imports.
Prep
In short, you need to debone the legs, roast the bones, and boil the roasted bones in the sauce. It will make a wonderful sauce. First, debone the chicken. Of course, you can ask the butcher to do this – ask to keep the bones.
Roast the bones in the oven, set at about 200 deg. The temp does not matter much – the bones just need to brown.
Next, combine the soya, sake and mirin in a pan, and toss the bones in.
Let this simmer away, till the liquid is reduced by half, and the sauce thickens. Taste it and free feel to adjust. Apart from the saltiness and umami of the soya, and the sweetness of the mirin, you will note there is a great taste contributed by the bones. It gives the sauce that something special.
When the sauce tastes right and is slightly thickened, you can remove the bones. You will have more sauce than you need, and this can be bottled. You will find good use for it!
If desired, the chicken legs can be marinated in a little soya (no mirin, which will burn during cooking). Traditionally, teriyaki is not marinated, but I find this helps a bit.
Cook!
In short, crank up your oven, and let the chicken cook for a bit, in the last few minutes, apply the sauce, again and again.
Follow the general scheme above, and you will get reasonable results, but I will share some very specific instructions that will allow you to get the best out of everything – including sauce that is otherwise wasted.
Set up a rack, over a water-filled tray in the oven
Assuming you are not starting a fire, the best way is to do this in an oven in broil/grill mode (top heat only), and with your chicken set on a rack, over a tray of water. Like so:
You don’t want the chicken to be resting directly on a hot tray – the sweet sauce will burn, turn black, and stick the chicken to the pan. For that reason, you want top heat, without heat from the bottom, which will just burn any sauce that drips through. The way I do it, any excess sauce will dip into the water-filled tray below. It will not burn, and… it can be recycled! The juices, fats and sauces dipping down will combine to make a divine sauce you can pour over the chicken. You will love it!
This will avoid waste, and make clean up easy.
Grilling instructions :
- Switch oven on. Preheat the rack and tray with water, and in the meantime, oil the meat side of the chicken
- When oven is hot, slide tray out, and slap chicken on skin side up. Slide it back in to cook for few minutes. In my oven, this step takes 5 mins.
- At this point, the chicken should be hot, sizzling and almost cooked. Slide out, flip the chicken so the meat side is up. Apply the teriyaki sauce you made, let cook for 1 minute.
- Repeat 2-3 times. Watch closely, that the sauce chars, but does not burn too much. Adjust the rack height as needed.
- Turn chicken, so the skin side is back up (it should be sizzling). Apply sauce. Cook one minute.
- Repeat 2-3 times. Watch closely, that the sauce chars, but does not burn too much. Adjust the rack height as needed.
- And you are done.
Remove the chicken from the oven. There will now be a rich sauce in the tray, full of teriyaki and chicken fat. I like to pour the sauce into a sauce pan, and reduce it till its makes a nice, thickened sauce. This can be poured over the chicken, or into the rice bowl. It will taste wonderful, rich with chicken fat.
Serve at once.
Note : I call this Teriyaki, and not a Yakitori, as I am not skewering the chicken. Except for that, this is a recipe for Yakitori. Just put the meat on sticks. For home cooking, I find skewering a step that can be skipped. It takes a while to skewer meat, and it makes sense only if you doing it over coals.
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