I'm Marc Matsumoto and
welcome to my Tokyo kitchen. Today I want to show you how to make an authentic Japanese Teriyaki Sauce that you can use to season everything from chicken, to seafood, to stir fries, and once you know the three ingredient secret, you'll never pay extra for
that bottled stuff again. Before we jump into making the sauce, I thought it might be helpful for
you to know what teriyaki means. The name is actually two words in Japanese: teri, which means shiny, and yaki, which is a word that's used to describe high temperature cooking methods like grilling, roasting, or pan frying. The important thing to remember here is that if you add anything to the
sauce that dulls its shine, it's not teriyaki. Alright, let's have a look at our ingredients. I'm using 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup sake, and 1/2 cup of sugar. It's just equal parts of all three ingredients. The soy sauce can be any Japanese
style dark soy sauce like Kikkoman. It doesn't need to be fancy,
but different countries use different soy sauce so make sure it's Japanese. Sake is a beverage that's used for
cooking in Japan because it adds umami. The savory taste of umami comes from
amino acids which are created by the breakdown of protein and
rice during fermentation. If you're wondering about the alcohol, ethanol boils at a lower temperature than water, so as long as you cook the sauce it'll evaporate, leaving you with just the umami. As for the sugar, I used evaporated cane sugar but any form of sugar without
a strong flavor will work. I like to make my Teriyaki
Sauce in a squeeze bottle to make it easy to use, but
you can also do this in a jar or really any container with a lid. Then I use a funnel to add the sugar, the soy sauce, and the sake. now I'm gonna affix the lid tightly, and shake this up until the
sugar has fully dissolved. This will take a little while, so keep shaking and take a rest if your hand starts to get tired. To see how we're doing I'm gonna
gently flip the bottle over after letting things settle, and it looks like I need to shake this a bit more. And that's pretty much all there is to it. But you're probably wondering
how this turns into that thick, shiny glaze that we all know and love. Well, that's all in how you use the sauce, so, let me show you how I
make my Chicken Teriyaki. Today I'm using a whole deboned chicken leg, but you can use thighs or even breast meat. I like using skin on chicken, but I'm going to trim off any
excess fat or connective tissue. The skin keeps the chicken moist
and tender and we're gonna fry it up until it's golden brown, which
will render out most of the fat, and make it nice and crispy. Now I'm gonna season this with some grated ginger. Remember what I said about adding
ingredients to Teriyaki Sauce that could cloud it up? Ingredients like ginger and garlic
are a good way to ruin the shine of Teriyaki Sauce, but by seasoning
the chicken with them directly it won't affect the clarity
or the shine of the sauce. Then I'm just gonna season
both sides of the chicken with a pinch of salt. This ensures the
chicken is seasoned all the way through. Now you can let this marinate
for a few minutes, but today I'm just gonna rub the salt
in a bit and fry it right up. I have a cold nonstick pan here and I'm
gonna set the chicken in it skin side down. Then I'm gonna turn the stove on to medium heat. This allows some of the fat
from the skin to render out, so we don't need to add any extra oil. As you can see, the chicken likes
to curl up a bit as it cooks, so you want to use tongs to press
down any areas that are popping up, to ensure the skin makes
good contact with the pan. Keep applying pressure in various areas and you can check the skin side periodically to make sure it's browning evenly. If you see lighter areas, just
focus your pressing on those areas. After five to six minutes, your chicken should be a little over
a third of the way cooked through. Now I'm gonna flip it over, and just look at how golden
brown and crisp that skin is! On this side, we want to focus our pressing on the thicker parts of the chicken. This is going to help ensure
that any stubborn thicker parts get cooked through evenly. Once the chicken is almost
completely cooked through, use as many paper towels as it takes to soak up all of that chicken fat. You want to get the pan as
free of grease as possible because it'll cloud the sauce. Then I'm gonna pour in the teriyaki sauce. How much you add is up to you, but for a piece of chicken this size, I like to add about 2 to 3 tablespoons. Now you just want to continue flipping the chicken to glaze it with the teriyaki
sauce as it caramelizes. Keep going until the sauce is nice and viscous and you have a thick coating of it on the chicken. Just be careful not to take
it too far and burn it. Okay, this looks and smells divine, so I'm gonna get it out of the pan and onto a cutting board to rest. Just like a steak, you want to give whole cuts
of chicken a chance to rest so that all those juices that
we worked so hard to retain don't come squirting out when we cut it. Once the chicken has had a few minutes to rest, I'm gonna brush on the remaining
teriyaki sauce from the pan, and now you can garnish it with all those goodies like toasted sesame seeds, and scallions. Okay, it's kind of hard to describe just how good this smells, so I'm
gonna have a bite and let you know. Itadakimasu! All right. Let's cut off a
piece. Oh, that's so juicy! Get a bunch of the sauce on there. You've got this sweet and savory
caramelized coating of teriyaki sauce on the outside of the chicken, and on the inside, it's super juicy! I know some of you are probably a little skeptical that a Teriyaki Sauce with only three ingredients could taste better than a
bottled one that's got like 30, but this is how we make Teriyaki Sauce in Japan, and it works. All right. Let's go in for another bite here. It's perfect! This Teriyaki Sauce was amazing on this chicken, but it also goes really well on steaks, salmon, or even tofu, so I hope you'll give it a try! Just remember, equal parts
soy sauce, sake, and sugar. All right, I'm gonna finish this off. So good! By the way, my teriyaki sauce will
keep for months in the fridge, so make a big batch so you'll
always have some on hand. Well, I'm off to go pick some blueberries, but check out this playlist for other
easy Japanese sauces and condiments, and I'll catch you in the next one!
