4 Levels of Teriyaki: Amateur to Food Scientist

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Hi, I'm Billy and I'm a Level 1 Chef.

Hi, I'm Emily and I'm a Level 2 Chef.

Hi, I'm Yuji. I'm a Professional Chef.

I've been cooking more than 10 years.

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What do I love about teriyaki? It's ubiquitous.

A little bit of sweetness, but that umami underpinning

that kinda makes your mouth water.

Sake, soy sauce, mirin and sugar.

To me, that's like a classic teriyaki.

Teriyaki is just a way over cooking.

Teri means glazed, and then yaki means cooking.

So, it is a way to cook any protein

with really nice glaze on top.

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You can do teriyaki for all kinds of protein.

I've got two chicken breasts here.

First things first.

I wanna get some of this skin off of the chicken breast,

and then the yucky stuff here.

Very technical name, the yucky stuff.

I have salmon fillets, skin on.

I grew up in a place

where there's a lot of salmon, actually.

Fun fact about me.

I choose a hanger steak for my teriyaki.

Hanger steak is very meaty and very fatty,

and it really has a really good flavor.

I'm gonna slice it into smaller pieces

so that there's a lot more surface area

for the teriyaki sauce to get onto.

[Billy] I'm going to portion the steak

so that it has a really nice thickness,

and then when I cook it,

it can still remain the piece to be medium rare.

My chicken is now stripified.

I got my steaks ready.

I'm gonna move on to making my own marinade.

You gotta have teriyaki sauce.

Teriyaki is the name of the sauce.

Without the teriyaki sauce, there's no teriyaki.

Traditionally, teriyaki is made with a combination

of the soy sauce. Soy sauce.

Sake. Sake.

And mirin. Mirin.

Mirin is also sweet.

I usually call it SSM, soy-sake-mirin.

It's such a long term, so I just SSM.

And sugar. That's it.

Four ingredients. This is so easy.

The idea of making my own teriyaki sauce

seemed a little daunting.

So, I am blessed with plenty

of different store bought options to work with,

and I think this is probably the best one I've come across.

You can buy, like, pre-made teriyaki mixes.

Some of 'em have other stuff in them.

I'm adding kombu.

Kombu is a type of seaweed, also known as kelp.

It has a really nice umami acid,

which is known as glutamic acid.

I'm adding bonito flake.

This has a really special umami acid known as inosinic acid.

I like to have summer bay leaf, clove,

and then a cinnamon stick.

Then, I like to have a little bit of citrusy flavor,

so I'm going to add a orange.

Little bit of live seasoning that we're doing here.

Some fresh ginger. Ginger.

Real rough chop.

Just try to get it as small

as somebody of my chef caliber can.

Fresh ginger [baggy rustling] into the bag.

I'm just gonna simmer it a few minutes.

I want to melt the sugar.

And I want to reduce it a little.

Just thicken it up teensy-tiny bit.

Make almost like a stock.

As much as I love sake, you don't want like,

a pure alcohol taste with it, you know?

You want it to be cooked off a little bit.

Next up, two cloves of crushed garlic. Very nice.

Looks great.

I'm ready to strain this.

My version is gonna be a little bit different.

I like the flavor of honey so much

that I usually use this instead of the mirin.

I'm not going to reduce this down

because honey is gonna thicken up.

All right, this is the hardest part of the recipe.

You ready?

Here we go.

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All righty, and we're ready to go with the marinade.

Give it a massage and [baggy rustling]

I'm gonna let this marinade off to the side

for about a half hour.

Everything's kinda married together.

The sugar is melted.

We produced a little bit of the liquid out.

That's all I was really going for.

So, teriyaki sauce ready for action, baby.

Now, my marinade is ready for my cooking.

For this recipe I'm using

plain old jasmine rice. Jasmine rice.

I would not probably use jasmine rice.

Japanese cooking is always made with a short grain rice.

I'm going to use short grain rice called Koshihikari.

And using a microwave rice cooker.

I'm going to be making it in a rice cooker.

Donabe rice pot.

Donabe is a traditional clay pot

I use for a lot of Japanese cooking.

I'm going to start washing the short grain rice in water.

Don't wash too much.

If you wash too much, it's gonna break the rice.

If you break the rice, rice is gonna be very mushy.

So, rice rinsed.

I'm going to add it into my rice cooker.

Add my water just up to the line.

I do like a little pinch of salt.

It's not like a big pinch.

It's literally, honestly, I kind of think of it

more like for good luck than for flavor. [laughs]

It's 5 minutes on high and then 15 minutes on 50%.

I'm just gonna pop that lid on there and press.

[timer chiming]

Cook it at a really high temperature.

As soon as I see the steam,

I'm gonna turn it down to low heat,

and I'm gonna wait for another 15 minutes.

Big bag of chicken marinade ready to go.

Gonna put it in the skillet and get things cooking.

The first thing I need to do

is just dry off my salmon a little.

Traditionally, teriyaki is just cooked in a saute pan

with a protein and this sauce goes into it.

And as you cook it, the glaze gets kinda like,

completely on the saute pan.

The way I'm going to cook this hanger steak

is a little bit unique.

On top of a baking dish.

Everything gets cooked really nicely and even,

and it has really nice caramelization.

I have salt here.

I'm not gonna be too aggressive with this

because I am gonna also basically cover this in soy sauce.

I'm gonna do just a little bit of white pepper.

Add my oil.

Sizzle sizzle.

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Give everybody room. You don't want anybody crowding.

I don't want all of this marinade

to make its way into the pan.

I think that's gonna end up being a sloppy mess real quick.

So, I'm gonna try to retain what comes naturally

as I take the chicken outta the marinade

and put it into the pan.

We're gonna cook this almost entirely

on the skin side down.

I'm going to go into the oven,

and then I repeat this process every three or four minutes.

Marinate, cook several times

until the surface is really nicely glazed.

Just a good old fashioned stir fry

ought to make sure that everything is cooked through

as long as it's brown on all sides.

The skin, it'll sort of like fuse to the pan at first.

And then, eventually once it cooks enough,

it should unlock and I'll be able to lift it.

And then, we'll just get a little fliparoni.

The first cooking, it was about five minutes.

And I start seeing little bit of caramelization right here.

So, I took it out.

I'm gonna marinate it again, and then back to the oven.

It doesn't feel raw anymore.

It's starting to feel proper.

Like the kind of consistency you wanna put in your mouth.

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Not the kind of consistency you wanna spit into a napkin.

The edge is getting nice and, like, hard.

And then, I see more char. I'm very excited.

Okay, go back.

Maybe one more time. We'll see.

I think this chicken's done.

[pan sizzling]

Cutting the heat.

[pan sizzling]

Nope, that's the other way.

Cutting the heat. There we go.

My salmon is looking perfect, beautiful, delicious.

I'm just gonna add my sauce to the bottom of the pan

'cause the top is nice and beautiful and crispy right now.

And I really wanna kinda preserve that as best I can.

The chicken's gotta rest for a little bit,

but you don't want all the moisture

to just escape into the room, right?

So, boom.

We tent the chicken.

We take the chicken camping.

[foil rustling]

Put it in the tent.

But hold onto this pan

'cause we're gonna use it for the broccoli.

I think that this is perfect.

The fish looks great. It's well cooked.

And I'm going to hold onto this sauce

and use it for plating.

Meat is looking perfect.

Exactly the texture and the flavor,

aroma that I was looking for.

What I have to do right now is to wait and rest.

And then, after that I'm gonna serve this.

For my side, the aforementioned broccoli.

I have a pot of boiling water,

and here is a bowl of ice water.

So, when this is boiled for a couple minutes,

I'm gonna take it out and shock it in the ice water,

which should keep things nice and toothy

and snapping, ngr, ngr, good.

I'm gonna be making some oyster mushrooms.

One of the things I like about oyster mushrooms

is that you can really kinda crisp them up

in a pan like this.

They've got a lot of surface area.

I'm going to use uni.

A half, it's gonna be served fresh on top,

over your sliced hanger steak.

And then, the other half is gonna be dehydrated.

Got this pan with all the delicious stuff

stuck on the bottom ready to get heated back up.

They're already starting to stick to the pan a little

and we want that.

We want them to kinda get a little crispy, a little brown.

Minced garlic.

A little bit of cooking on the garlic

before I put the soy sauce in 'cause I don't wanna poach it.

This chicken is pretty much

most of the way, all the way cooked.

So, we wanna introduce this at the last possible moment

so that we're not overcooking the chicken.

Don't want it undercooked,

but you don't want it overcooked either.

Sploosh. Technical term of soy sauce.

And because we are making a teriyaki dinner.

Sploosh of teriyaki sauce.

I want it to have something very refreshing.

Watermelon radish is really pretty.

The color is really nice inside.

Sprinkle of sugar, sprinkle of salt,

and you just toss it.

This type of pickle is called asazuke.

Asazuke means quick pickle.

And I'm gonna let this set for about 10, 15 minutes

until the water comes out.

Do we need any more teriyaki sauce?

Where would I get more teriyaki sauce

if I needed more teriyaki sauce?

If you're smart like me, you didn't throw out

that big old bag of marinade that you were using earlier.

I'm just gonna throw a little bit in.

We're gonna let this cook, baby cook.

Pick up all the delicious stuff

that got loosened from the bottom.

And folks, [pan clanking]

we're ready to put this onto some rice.

Now, I tilt these into here.

And that's what I call a frigging mushroom.

I can tell this radish is ready.

I don't see any more salt and sugar on top of the radish,

and I also see water coming out.

I can add vinegar and a lime, and then the shiso.

This is my watermelon asazuke pickle.

Everything's done. Now, it's time to plate and serve.

We're gonna put down a bed of white jasmine rice.

I want lots of rice on here

because it has to soak up

all of those delicious teriyaki flavors.

[Billy] Broccoli here. Delish.

Now, chicken.

Then, I'm gonna take my salmon, crispy skin up.

I want him shown off.

I'm going to slice hanger steak teriyaki.

Kinda almost like a sashimi.

My serving plate is going to be actually this donabe.

I'm gonna put the steak over the donabe rice.

Mushrooms. Who's the prettiest mushroom?

Waterman radish is gonna add

a really nice color, texture, and the flavor.

Scallions for a little color,

a little bit of onion flavor.

And then it's gonna have a really nice yellow color

from sea urchin.

So, I'm just gonna grab a little pickled ginger.

We don't need a lot of this.

It's like pretty salty and it packs a pretty big punch.

I took the extra teriyaki marinade

and then reduced it so that I could actually use it

as a finishing.

Very last step.

I'm going to give this a subtle dust

with some sesame seeds. Sesame seeds?

A little sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle.

Little bit of flavor, but mostly aesthetics.

This is shichimi togarashi

which is like a seven-flavor red pepper flake mix.

I love this because it brings a lot of different flavors

and it adds a little bit of heat.

And finally, I'm gonna have

this dehydrated uni shaved all over.

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is my chicken teriyaki with broccoli.

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And this is my salmon teriyaki dinner

with mushrooms and rice.

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This is my beef teriyaki with uni.

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Everything looks great.

Now comes the fun part. Tasting.

Now, want some rice.

We want a mushroom for sure.

Let's break into that salmon.

Doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before.

[laughs] Very excited to try.

Mm. Mm.

Wow. Mm.

Chickens get not overcooked. Thank God.

Mushrooms are perfect. Umami and sweet and salty.

A little garlicky. Just delicious.

It's a very nice mix of the authentic childhood teriyaki

that I ate growing up together with sea urchin.

I don't even know how to describe

because such a special combination.

Broccoli's not too soft, not too tough.

Got it just right. Thank you, Mr. Ice Bath.

And then the salmon. My beautiful salmon.

You get, like, a little bit of teriyaki flavor

and it's just a really nicely cooked piece of fish.

I don't wanna toot my own horn here too much, but toot-toot.

Wow Came out so good.

More than I expected.

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Let's see how each of our three chefs made teriyaki.

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Billy marinated strips of chicken breasts

in his teriyaki sauce with added crushed garlic.

Crushing promotes the mixing

of cell components in the garlic,

so the enzyme alliinase forms allicin,

a sulfur containing compound that contributes a spicy bite.

It balances the very sweet sauce with savory flavor.

Emily seared salmon.

Patting the salmon dry

encouraged quick Maillard browning and crust formation.

This gives an extra flavor and Christmas

to the outside and edges of her salmon.

What's not the love?

Yuji used hanger steak.

A portion from the upper plate or belly of beef.

He broiled his skewers over a baking dish

with sides deep enough that they retained heat

from the radiant coils of the broiler

located above the skewers.

It's taking all the excess water and then juice out.

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Billy purchased commercial teriyaki sauce,

which has quite a lot of sugar.

It also contains soy sauce

in addition to water, vinegar and salt.

Close enough to something that I made.

Emily made her own teriyaki sauce by cooking together

equal parts soy sauce, sake, and mirin.

Mirin is an alcoholic beverage made from fermentation

of polished rice combined with Koji and Shochu.

The addition of the Shochu limits alcoholic fermentation

while it's aged for a few months

between 77 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

During aging, the starches on the rice

are broken down by enzymes in the Koji into glucose,

giving mirin characteristic sweetness.

Yuji marinated beef in soy sauce and sake

with other warming spices like cinnamon, clove and ginger,

plus orange, which adds sweetness and citric

and ascorbic acids for a unique brightness.

Sake is an alcoholic beverage

made from fermented polished rice.

The flavor profile is a result of the microorganisms

used in fermentation.

Sake has various amino acids from the catabolism of proteins

and is particularly high in glutamic acid,

giving an umami quality.

Honey's a nice addition

because it's made from glucose and fructose in solution.

So, the sweetness is intense,

but modified by the presence of organic acids and minerals.

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Billy made his rice in a microwave.

Microwaves cause polar molecules to quickly rotate,

which causes friction and heat, which cooks the rice.

Water is a polar molecule

and is an essential component for cooking in a microwave.

Emily rinsed her jasmine rice to remove excess starch,

and then used a rice cooker.

This is an electric apparatus that has a heating coil

wrapped around the internal bowl,

which cooks the rice to a precise temperature.

Jasmine rice is long grain and very fragrant.

2-acetyl-1-pyrroline is an abundant aromatic compound

in jasmine rice that gives flavors

reminiscent of pandan and popcorn.

I would not probably use jasmine rice for clay pot

and also Japanese food in general.

Yuji made short grain Japanese rice

in a traditional donabe,

which is a slightly porous clay pot

designed to bake very evenly.

The glazed exterior promotes far infrared rays.

This is similar to how charcoal continues to cook

even after the flame is gone.

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Billy blanched broccoli.

This sets the bright green color,

which is expressed when broccoli is heated

and water evaporates from cells,

leaving the chlorophyll intact

and expressed as a beautiful bright green color.

Yuji garnished with dried uni,

which is another name for sea urchin.

It concentrated the savory amino acids in brine.

It's almost like snowflake, yellow snowflake.

Teriyaki is a delicious, sweet, savory,

and tangy all-in-one marinade sauce or seasoning.

We hope you'll take some of these tips

from our three amazing chefs to make teriyaki your own.

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