Teriyaki is an extremely easy dish to prepare, takes very little time, and tastes delicious. A nice large filet of salmon prepared teriyaki style makes a great dish for parties or pot-lucks as well.

Most of what passes for Teriyaki, particularly on the supermarket shelves, is not at all authentic. Typical store bought sauces are loaded with corn syrup, preservatives and other junk. In actuality, basic teriyaki sauce has only four ingredients, sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar. The teriyaki recipe presented here is adapted from Hiroko Shimbo’s excellent cookbook, The Japanese Kitchen. The most difficult part of the process is to prevent the sauce from burning, so keep a close eye on it and adjust the heat as necessary!

Teriyaki Sauce

1/4 c. sake (try the Michu brand cooking sake)
1/2 c. mirin
1/4 c. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sugar

Combine sake and mirin and heat in a sauce pan for five minutes. Add the soy sauce and sugar and cook the mixture for 20-30 minutes over a low flame, being careful not to allow a rapid boil or a lot of foam to develop. Cool the sauce before use. Once you have made this basic sauce, try creating some flavored teriyaki. I like to add fresh pineapple chunks during the cooking. I’ve also tried orange juice, chili peppers and ginger with good results.

To prepare the salmon, I simply oiled a glass baking dish to help prevent sticking and baked the salmon at about 375F for 15-20 minutes or so, basting the filet with the teriyaki sauce 2-3 times. There are several different ways do this step. Some people broil the salmon for 5-10 minutes first and then finish at a lower temperature with the teriyaki sauce. You can also get a really nice flavor on the grill. Experiment with different cooking methods to find one you like the best.

 

Posted under Recipe, Seafood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.