Teriyaki Salmon, homemade Teriyaki sauce, Japan.

Tonight, we traveled to Japan. Jerome and I have been getting around on Japanese culture pretty well and on different levels lately; while he went for mangas, blossoming trees, râmen bowls compo, video games and wild landscapes online discovery, I went for almost everything he picked, minus mangas, plus cooking. Because of that, it sounded very natural for us to choose Japan as our very next “Trip on the Plate” destination, and our World Food Challenge.

We both are very fond of Asian cuisine in general, and Far-East Asian cuisine in particular. The complexity of flavors and aromas puts Asia on top of the world foods in my opinion. Jerome, as a true chauvinist, still sees French cuisine as the best and most complex cuisine in the world. But thank G-d, my husband has become extremely open-minded these last few years when it came to tasting new unusual dishes, and he truly loves a lot of various flavors from the World. And so do I. We’re still experimenting new tastes every week, and recently I’ve decided that we would take it to the next level, by not only tasting new things but also by testing the home making of little details within some recipes. I’ll explain and you will understand at the end of the next paragraph!

There are plenty of great Japanese dishes to choose from. Tonight though, we wanted to avoid getting into rolling sushis (too time-consuming when we already both got home so late), or trying homemade Teppanyaki for the first time (too risky for someone who hates cleaning up afterwards), or struggling with Râmen spices mix (when we were not sure about the right mix balance and didn’t want to ruin our dinner). So we went for a simple Teriyaki Salmon, except that I have made my own Teriyaki sauce, homemade please! It is so easy to make that I first wondered whether it was worth a post. 

In Japan, the Teriyaki sauce is used to marinate, brush or coat the fish. The use of Teriyaki sauce over meat is an invention of Western countries. The Teriyaki sauce can be used as a glaze as well as a dipping sauce. Here I topped the salmon steaks with sesame seeds.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 1 big clove of garlic, thinly minced
• 1 cup of water
• 5 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of soya sauce
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 1 tsp of grounded ginger
• 1/4 cup of cold water combined with 2 tbsp of cornstarch

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Mince the garlic clove
2. In a small saucepan, combine the water, garlic, sugar, soya sauce, honey and ginger. Set over medium fire.
3. In a small bowl, stir the cornstarch in the cold water until it’s thoroughly combined.
4. Pour it in the saucepan, and keep stirring until you obtain the right consistency. If you think it’s too thick to your taste, just add cold water and stir again to thin it up.
5. Extra: To cook your salmon, heat a tsp of oil in a pan and start cooking your salmon steaks, about 2 minutes on each side on high heat. Decrease heat to medium. Start pouring some Teriyaki sauce, and gently flip the salmon, twice, in the pan to roll it over in the sauce. Add some more sauce and sprinkle sesame seeds. While you finish cooking the salmon, use a spoon to keep coating the salmon with the Teriyaki sauce.

The remaining Teriyaki sauce can be stored in a mason jar. Although you can keep it several days in the fridge, don’t forget that there’s no conservative in your homemade version, therefore the sauce could not be kept edible forever, so you better get started on planning ahead some nice dishes that will use up your nice homemade Teriyaki sauce. As for myself, I will go for a sushi take-out anytime soon and try my Teriyaki sauce with loooooooots of Wasabi paste add-on!

Before you leave, please take a minute to check out the page of my Cookbook, available for delivery worldwide. 

Created and Written by Sophie Rebibo-Halimi, © 2015 All Rights Reserved.