Teriyaki sauce.

In its most pure essence this is just a reduction of four ingredients that will give you a really flavourful result. It is said that the secrets of Italian cooking is to take a dish and remove most of the ingredients till you end up with just five.  This idea of just stripping a thing done to just a few elements to give you the most affective result is embodying perfectly in teriyaki sauce. You can just use a little with fish chicken, beef, hot, or cols or as a marinade and it really gives the food a lift.  Also it is that perfect balance of sweet, sour, bitter and salt that just works so well together.  Here I have put together two recipes one for the very purist and one for us les mortal that never have the right ingredients in the cupboard

You will need for the pure teriyaki

120ml/4floz mirin

120ml/4floz  dark soy sauce

120ml/4floz  sake

4tbsp granulated sugar

Put the mirin in a saucepan and het it over a medium heat and then simmer for about two minutes.  This will help reduce the harshness of the alcohol . once you have done that add the soy sauce sake and sugar and keep on simmering until the liquid has reduced by half. And that is it , let it cool use as a marinade or as a dipping sauce what every you want to use it for .

The second sauce is the same but has a couple of other elements and you do not have to worry so much about reducing and simmering as the inclusion of water dilutes that harsh flavones of the alcohols.  Also you can see that I have listed other things like dry sherry and white wine if you do not have the mirin or sake.

For my bodgers teriyaki

120ml/4floz  mirin or dry white wine

120ml/4floz dark soy sauce

120ml/4floz sake or dry sherry

120ml /4floz water

2tbsp corn flour

4tbsp 50 g granulated sugar

2tbsp 20g Crushed garlic

2tbsp 20g Crushed ginger

Add the mirin or dry white wine, dark soy sauce, sake or dry sherry, sugar, garlic and ginger all go in to a saucepan and bring up to the boil. Then add the water to the corn flour and mix them together . Now add the corn flour to the saucepan stirring all the time and let the sauce thicken. This is more of a sauce then a marinade but it is still full of flavour and you can use it over all kinds of foods as well .

You can make your teriyaki as a mix of the two recipes just letting it reduce and adding the garlic and ginger, or even a little chilli as well.  It is easy to make and taste great with all sorts of thing what more could you want.