Enough for 1kg of meat
Total time 20 min
This is not authentic teriyaki and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I found the original in a Hungarian barbecue book about twenty years ago, and I have been quietly changing it ever since, until the garlic, the tomato paste and the ginger stopped being additions and became the recipe. Without them it tastes like something else now. I have put this on more things than I can list, including hard-boiled eggs, which sounds wrong and is not.
One thing decides how this turns out: the chilli. Fresh chilli is the strongest, chilli powder sits in the middle, and dried flakes are the mildest of the three. Start at the lower end and add more once you have tasted it, because you cannot take heat back out.
Ingredients
- 240ml (1 cup) soy sauce
- 160ml (⅔ cup) mirin
- 60g (⅓ cup) sugar
- 170g tomato paste
- 6 large garlic cloves, or 8 small ones
- 3 Tbsp fresh ginger
- 5 Tbsp sesame oil
- 1 Tbsp chilli powder, or to taste
Equipment
- Fine grater or microplane
The Simple Process
- Prep: Peel the garlic and the ginger. Grate the ginger finely.
- The Base: Put the soy sauce, mirin and sugar in a pan over low heat. Stir now and then until the sugar has completely dissolved and you can no longer feel grains at the bottom of the pan.
- Thicken: Stir in the tomato paste and bring it back to a gentle boil. Keep it going until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon rather than running straight off it.
- Finish: Take the pan off the heat. Press in the garlic, then stir in the grated ginger, sesame oil and chilli. The sesame oil goes in off the heat, where it keeps its flavour instead of cooking away.
- Serve: Taste and add more chilli a little at a time if you want it hotter. Use it straight away, or let it cool completely before storing.
How to use it
One batch coats about a kilo of meat, with some left over. Chicken, pork, beef, whatever you have. It does just as well on vegetables or stirred through noodles, and it works as a marinade or brushed on at the grill. Use more of it and the result comes out juicier rather than glazed, so how much you pour is the only decision you need to make.
It keeps for about two weeks in the fridge in a sealed jar. For longer, freeze it in an ice cube tray and bag the cubes, then defrost only as much as you need.
