Chicken Teriyaki Donburi
Four ingredients make the glaze, and it reduces in the same pan the chicken cooked in. Rice bowl on the table in fifteen minutes.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 640
- Calories
- 40g
- Protein
- 22g
- Fat
- 68g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 400 g boneless chicken thighs, skin on
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp mirin
- 2 tbsp sake
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 servings short-grain rice
- 2 spring onions
- 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
- Shichimi togarashi, to serve
Instructions
- 1Pat the chicken thighs dry with kitchen paper. Any surface moisture steams instead of browning, and the skin will not crisp.
- 2Mix the soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar in a small bowl.
- 3Slice the spring onions thinly on the diagonal.
- 4Put the thighs skin-side down in a cold, dry frying pan, then turn the heat to medium. Starting cold lets the fat under the skin render out slowly instead of seizing, which is what makes it crisp rather than rubbery.
- 5Cook undisturbed for 7 to 8 minutes, until the skin is deep golden and releases from the pan on its own.
- 6Turn the thighs and cook for 3 minutes more, then lift them onto a board.
- 7Pour off all but about a teaspoon of the rendered fat. Add the sauce mixture and let it bubble for 60 to 90 seconds, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- 8Slice the chicken into thick strips, return them to the pan and turn once or twice in the glaze.
- 9Spoon over bowls of hot rice, pour the remaining glaze on top, and finish with spring onion, sesame seeds and a pinch of shichimi.
Teriyaki in Japan is a cooking method, not a bottled sauce. Teri means glaze and yaki means grilled, and the sauce is four pantry ingredients reduced until it shines.
What is actually in it
Soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar, in roughly equal parts with the sugar adjusted to taste. That is the whole thing.
Mirin is a sweet rice wine with a low alcohol content, and it is doing more than sweetening — its sugars and amino acids are what give the glaze its shine and help it cling. Sake adds depth and cooks off. If you have neither, dry sherry stands in for the sake, and mirin can be approximated with sake plus a teaspoon of sugar, though the shine suffers.
The bottled supermarket versions are thickened with starch and sweetened heavily, which is why they taste nothing like this.
Start the chicken in a cold pan
Skin-on chicken thighs have a thick layer of fat between skin and meat. Dropped into a hot pan, the skin contracts and seizes before that fat has rendered, and you end up with a flabby layer sitting on top.
Starting in a cold, dry pan and bringing the heat up slowly gives the fat time to melt out and effectively fry the skin in itself. It takes seven or eight minutes and needs no oil at all.
Do not move it. The skin releases from the pan by itself when it is properly crisp; if it sticks, it is not ready.
Reduce in the same pan
The browned bits left behind after the chicken comes out are concentrated flavour. Pouring the sauce in there and letting it bubble lifts all of it into the glaze.
Ninety seconds is usually enough. You are looking for the point where a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a trail that closes slowly. Go further and the sugars will catch and turn bitter as it cools.
The rice matters more than people think
Japanese short-grain rice is starchy enough to clump slightly, which is what makes a donburi work — the glaze soaks into the top layer instead of running straight to the bottom of the bowl. Long-grain rice stays separate and the sauce pools.
Rinse it until the water runs clear before cooking, whichever type you use.
Nutrition
Around 640 calories with 40 grams of protein. Using skinless thighs cuts roughly 6 grams of fat per serving and still works, though you lose the crisp skin and will need a teaspoon of oil to start.
The glaze keeps in the fridge for a week and is good on salmon, tofu or mushrooms, so it is worth making a double batch of the sauce.
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