Lately I’ve had the urge to cook lots of asian food. I’m not sure why, it might be me balancing out all the earlier western food I’ve been doing? The other half has been working more weekdays recently and asian food is generally quick, so that’s probably contributed. Either way, I’m enjoying some new dishes.
I love teriyaki, it’s sweet, a little bit savoury and it’s always tender. Everything in this recipe can be found in your local chinese supermarket and most of the ingredients are staples in asian cuisine anyway, so stock up. There are lots of different ways to make a teriyaki sauce but I’ve gone for a simple one. If I wanted a “posh” dinner that I was preparing in advance, I would add all sorts of stuff to the sauce but here I just want something quick and simple (but still tasty).
Try to avoid the standard supermarket asian foodstuffs – they’re generally limited and usually awful. Since Teriyaki is a Japanese sauce you should use a Japanese soy sauce but I find Kikkoman horrible! I’ve grown up on Chinese soy sauce, so I use Pearl River Bridge (ideally Golden Label), light and dark soy sauce. If I could get my hands on a good quality Japanese soy sauce that I liked I would use it. You do need both types of soy sauce for the Teriyaki, adding extra light or using all dark would taste very wrong. Don’t buy mushroom dark soy sauce either… that would just make the whole thing taste weird! Light is salty with a savoury taste, dark is for colour and to add additional sweetness. You will also need sake for the teriyaki sauce, you could substitute it for mirin but then you will need to reduce the sugar, effectively we are making our own mirin by mixing sake and sugar – so keep that in mind; I suggest a dry rather than sweet sake for the same reason. You don’t need to buy a top quality sake but I usually end up drinking more sake than goes in the sauce, so something you will enjoy drinking is recommended!
Ingredients (Serves 2):
600g Salmon Fillet
2 Hearts of Romaine
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 Medium Carrot
2 Cups (340g) of Rice
1 Tbsp Groundnut Oil
Teriyaki Sauce:
220g White Sugar
8 Tbsp Light Soya
4 Tbsp Dry Sake
2 Tbsp Dark Soya
Method:
1. First make the sauce by combining the sugar and the light soya in a pan over a medium-low heat.
2. Once the sugar has dissolved, take the sauce off the heat and add in the Sake and dark soya.
3. Julienne the carrot and cut the Salmon into portions.
4. Allow the sauce to cool and then pour it over the Salmon fillets and carrot.
5. Start cooking your rice.
6. Heat the Salmon Teriyaki on a medium heat for about 15-20mins or until the Salmon is cooked through.
7. Separate the romaine leaves, wash and then dry them. Dice the garlic. Prepare a pan by heating the groundnut oil.
8. Add the garlic to the hot oil and then stir fry the romaine leaves.
9. As the romaine leaves start to shrink pour over 1-2 tablespoons of light soya, continue stir frying for a few minutes and serve with some warm sake.
Tips:
Ideally you can marinade the Salmon in the teriyaki sauce for an hour or better still overnight in the fridge. But just coating the Salmon in the sauce will work fine.
The chinese veg element to this dish is very flexible, if you can’t get hearts of romaine or don’t want to use them then Chinese leaf (Napa Cabbage), Iceberg or Gem lettuce will also do.
This same Teriyaki sauce will work with almost any meat, so if Salmon or fish isn’t your thing you can switch it for some chicken or pork.