Recipe request

[venta]

Does anyone have a good recipe for teriyaki sauce ? I'm after the thick, sticky kind which is served in some Japanese restaurants. Not the thin kind (although that's good as a marinade), which is also served in some Japanese restaurants :)

Failing that, can anyone recommend a brand of buyable sticky sauce ?

Comments

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

I know the kind you mean but I don't know a recipe for the thick stuff nor can I remember the brand I used to buy years ago. I'd suggest asking at your local Chinese Supermarket.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Hopefully someone can find you a proper recipe, but speaking as a no-recipes person: this seems like exactly the situation where you don't want a recipe!

The flavour's just ginger and garlic (isn't it?) in a base of soy sauce and sugar. So stir some of those up until it tastes right and then add cornflour until it's the right thickness.

Or for that authentic following-a-recipe feel, try adding some extra steps which waste your time, create more washing up or oblige you to spend hours scouring the shelves of some chinese supermarket for something almost identical to one of the above ingredients!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I thought the most important ingredient in teriyaki sauce was mirin... which is quite distinctive-tasting and I doubt sugar would be the same. And the idea of just adding cornflour to make it thick sounds disgusting! It may well be the right thing, but it sounds nasty to me, and as if it would end up quite the wrong consistency.

I'm happy to create stuff at random, but I'd like a recipe to start with as I'm really not sure how one goes about it. Once I've got one I'll probably ignore it :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I thought the most important ingredient in teriyaki sauce was mirin

You're probably right, but having only ever seen the ingredients list on the supermarket versions I've yet to encounter it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. It's what makes nice teriyaki sauce "shiny" (and sweet), I think.

A bit of googling suggests that the sticky sauce might be more of an American thing than an authentic Japanese thing, though, so perhaps it mostly exists in bastardised Western versions.

[pm215]

This is the recipe in the Wagamama cookbook. No guarantees as to whether it's any good (or indeed that it doesn't turn out to be the thin kind).

Makes about 125ml. Ingredients: 110g (4oz) sugar, 4 tablespoons light soy sauce, 2 tablespoons sake, 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce.

Place sugar and light soy sauce in a small pan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes until thick, add the sake and dark soy sauce and allow to cool. Will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.

I believe that you can approximate mirin with sake + sugar, which I suspect is what's being done here.

[venta.livejournal.com]

"until thick" sounds promising :)

I might use that as a base for investigation (investigations proceeding as broadly outlined by bateleur above), thanks.

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

i reckon the sugar needs to caramelise. it helps the taste and the consistency of the sauce. so that investigation-base sounds promising :)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

You may want to add extra sugar, depending on how sweet the mirin is and how sweet you like it!

Be careful reducing syrups - use a heavy-bottomed pan, keep stirring, and keep the heat low (stripey_cat's mother tried to hurry along a syrup by whacking the heat up, and it boiled over, ignited on the elements, set off the fire-alarms in Hilda's accommodation, resulted in the Junior Dean cutting her hand trying to switch the alarm off, and left a lava-like mess on the cooker).

Don't use cornflour - you'll get entirely the wrong mouth-feel, and it'll taste nasty if it singes when you grill it!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have a heavy-based pan for just such jobs :) I couldn't justify why I thought cornflour was a bad idea, it just seemed inherently wrong.

While you're here... are you someone I know ? I'm just curious, as I noticed you listing me as friend and occasionally commenting here, but I'm not sure whether you're a chance-met LJ person or someone I know in the Big World. Either is fine ;)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

You know me, although I'm not sure we've met in the last couple of years. Would you like clues?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a game!

I've failed to gather any clues at all from your LJ. I'm not even sure whether you're a boy tiger or a girl tiger.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Raaar!

Well the picture is of Tatiana, who's a girl tiger[1], rather than me. Telling you that my girlfriend-at-the-time-I-first-met-you is on your flist but not mine is probably not very much of a clue. Actually, it might not even be true, but it's certainly true of the first time I remember meeting you.

[1] and bat, who's a bat of indeterminate gender.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I have a guess, but viewing your friends list suggests you don't count your brother as a friend :) Or maybe you've kept your LJs secret from each other.

Hmm. How are your hands these days ?

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm aware, my brother hasn't updated his LJ or read his flist in the last two years, so there didn't seem much point in putting him on mine. The only mutual friends that I and he have (that I can see) are you and spaglet. Does this confirm your guess?

As for the hands... pretty grim; the current diagnosis (as of a few years ago) is early-onset arthritis, which is obviously encouraging as all hell. I've been working part-time for a while but have averaged less than three hours per week over the last couple of months and have an appointment to talk to the doctor tomorrow....

How are yours, which never got quite the way mine did, IIRC?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Does this confirm your guess?

I'm too lazy to check properly, but I think so; if nothing else, the answer to the following question did...

As for the hands... pretty grim

That does sound nasty and a little bleak. I'm really sorry to hear that all the problems are still ongoing. Fingers crossed that the doctor might have something useful to say tomorrow.

I guess by now you've heard most of the well-meaning comments/suggestions people might have, and I'm sorry not to be able to think of anything original to say.

How are yours, which never got quite the way mine did, IIRC?

No, mine were never as bad. In fact the diagnosis was ultimately that there was nothing wrong with them at all, the problems all stemmed from my neck. I now do various neck/shoulder exercises that keep my hands in working order. I still get a bunch of neck problems, but they tend to vary from mildly uncomfortable to short-term painful, certainly nothing seriously debilitating.

[killalla]

www.japancentre.com - They also have a store in Piccadilly, which can probably handle most of your sauce needs. Although, when you describe 'thick' sauce, do you mean tonkatsu saunce, instead of teriyaki sauce?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. However, I mean "the sauce that is served over teriyaki salmon at, say, Taro in Brewer St". Which could be anything, I suppose :)

I think I know what tonkatsu sauce tastes like, and it is different. Though as I say possibly what I want isn't strictly teriyaki sauce either.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

My recipe's for the thin-kind, so can't help I'm afraid: although I did defrost some overnight & have some pork marinating in it for when I get home :-)

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

This isn't exactly what you asked for, and I don't know if you can get it in the UK, but I highly recommend Soy Vay's Veri Veri Teriyaki sauce. It's fabulous. It's the only bottled teriyaki I've ever had that tastes as good as the stuff they use at my favourite Japanese restaurant in St Albans. The company's run by a Chinese girl and a Jewish boy, hence the 'Soy Vay' bit. All the ingredients are proper and real. It's a marinade really, but when you cook it it turns into wonderful thick, sticky, gooey stuff which oozes flavour.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh dear oh dear... I'm not sure we should encourage names like that.

However, it seems you can get it in the UK (http://www.amazingfoodcompany.com/index.php?cPath=22&osCsid=e880e504ebb8596196fad39fc9c5c4aa), so when I next have spare cash I shall give it a try. Thanks.