Asian Delight / Teriyaki Chicken
April 6th, 2005

Just recently at the Asian food store I had to stop in front of all the different, enticingly designed juice cans. This time I convinced myself to have a try at them, a minimum of 3 had to be chosen. Out of the vast variety of colorful cans, covering the entire rainbow spectrum, I decided to go with Mango, Coconut and Tamarind juice.

Juices

The nominees: Mango – tasted great, not too sweet and very close to how you would expect a freshly “squeezed”, ripe mango should taste. Coconut – came with pieces that floated within the juice, which sort of reminded me of a lava lamp. The taste, hmm, well, after the first sip I was hectically looking for the instructions to see if it said something like: for every part of juice add 2 parts of water. Very sweet. Tamarind – interesting, very tart and rich in flavor. I’d probably be happy with a diluted version of it…(drum roll)…The winner, however, clearly is the Mango juice. Natural in taste, visually and texture-wise close to an A.

Along with the juice experiment I prepared roasted garlic paste for the teriyaki chicken I was about to cook. Not a difficult dish at all, the two things I’d point out though is timing (making sure the different vegetables aren’t mushy) and home made garlic paste. The teriyaki sauce I bought at the store. It’s pretty easy to make it yourself, but wanted to see how this one would compare (pretty good I’d say).

The recipe is a slight variation of the wagamama teriyaki chicken.
Oliver

Teriyaki Chicken

Garlic Paste: I took about 20 peeled garlic cloves, sprinkled them with olive oil, seasoned them with a little salt and pepper and put them in a preheated (210 ° degrees C.) oven for about 35-40 minutes. Once nicely browned I let them chill and pureed them afterwards in a food processor. Leftovers I kept in a small glass with some oil on top to seal.

Put the chicken, garlic paste, chili and teriyaki sauce in a bowl. Mix well and marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Prepare the rice (see also Curry, step04). For Thai/Japanese dishes I prefer a softer, stickier rice (ie. add a little more water). Preheat the wok (medium heat). Add the oil, the chicken & marinade and stir fry for a few minutes, until chicken takes on a golden/brownish color.

Now add peppers, onions, bean sprouts, pak choi. In terms of timing, this is the order which I find makes most sense, since it allows all vegetable to be to the point at the same time. Depending on how thick your slices are you can also for instance give the peppers a head start of a minute. The pak choi I’d add just a minute before everthing is done.

Season with salt and sugar to your liking and divide up between two bowls. Toss some spring onion slices and serve with the rice.

Teriyaki Chicken

Recipe source: the wagamama cookbook [teriyaki chicken, slightly adapted]

Required time: takes about 20 minutes to cook

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Ingredients (serves 2):

300g chicken breast

1 red chili

2 tsp homemade garlic paste

4-5 tbsp teriyaki sauce

1 spring onion, finely sliced

100g beansprouts

½ red onion

½ red and yellow pepper, cut into strips

80g pak choi, leaves

salt, sugar

rice

Comments

Apr 7th,
2005

Anonymous

Apr 8th,
2005

Apr 8th,
2005

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Apr 9th,
2005

Oliver

Apr 10th,
2005