Chicken teriyakis sweet and savory allure is rooted in tradition

What is teriyaki? It depends on whom you ask.

First, I asked chef Shota Nakajima of Taku Seattle and Kōbo Pizza. “‘Teri’ means glazed. ‘Yaki’ means grilled,” he said on a phone call during a recent trip to Japan. “So it’s a dish that is getting glazed as it’s grilled. That is the original definition of teriyaki.”

It’s believed to have originated during the Edo period in Japan, which lasted between the 17th and 19th centuries. Originally, it was more of a cooking technique than a particular recipe or dish, William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi wrote in “History of Teriyaki.” It involved meat or seafood cooked over direct heat while being brushed with a sauce, or tare, typically consisting of soy sauce, mirin and sake that adds luster and shine.

In the United States, teriyaki is more commonly known as a dish, which typically features chicken in a sweet and savory soy-sauce-based glaze. It’s this sauce that has come to define teriyaki in this country.

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Get the recipe: Chicken Teriyaki

Food writer Kiki Aranita has a deep appreciation for teriyaki in its American form. “I come with an understanding of teriyaki from a [Hawaiian] perspective, primarily, and to me, it’s very, very American,” said Aranita, who founded Poi Dog sauces. “My husband is a Jewish American, and he also feels perfectly entitled to teriyaki. When we talk about teriyaki and I’m like, ‘Oh, did you ever have those yakitori chicken skewers that were in the frozen section at Costco?’ That was a huge part of what teriyaki to me meant as a kid. And he had a similar experience, growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where he’s like, ‘Teriyaki is such an older Jewish mom dish. That’s their go-to.’”

Teriyaki arrived in Hawaii with Japanese immigrants and then spread to the mainland. As it migrated, it evolved based on the availability of ingredients and the influence of local tastes.

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“In Hawaii, we are very informed by the Okinawan immigrants that came to work on our sugar cane plantations, essentially starting from the early 1900s,” Aranita said. (Immigrants from other regions of Japan began arriving a couple of decades earlier.) “I personally am not Japanese or Okinawan, but most of my cousins are, so their aunties, their grandmothers would always marinate Spam in a teriyaki sauce. What teriyaki means to each auntie is a little bit different, but most essentially, it was soy sauce and sugar.”

The addition of sugar makes sense considering early immigrants probably didn’t have access to mirin, a sweetened Japanese cooking wine. Modern teriyaki sauces often include garlic and ginger as well. “The traditional recipe doesn’t have ginger and garlic, but I think adding those aromatics gives a nice kick,” said Rie McClenny, author of “Make It Japanese.” “You can customize it as you like.”

Nakajima has his own line of bottled teriyaki sauce that he sells online that includes ginger, garlic, sesame paste and nutritional yeast. Hawaiian versions of the sauce might also include scallions or pineapple. Even with other popular Hawaiian sauces, such as huli huli, “at the heart, these are just teriyaki sauces with a little bit of embellishment,” Aranita said. “This [union of soy sauce and sugar] is a cornerstone of basically every sauce in Hawaii.”

For my version of teriyaki sauce, I start with the traditional Japanese base of equal parts soy sauce, sake and mirin to use as a quick marinade for boneless, skinless chicken thighs. The sake and mirin add depth of flavor that might otherwise be missing from versions that are primarily soy sauce based. Minced garlic and ginger add even more pop, while a bit of sugar — brown sugar, in this instance — lends an extra touch of sweetness to more closely resemble the plates of chicken teriyaki I remember eating at mall food courts. The sauce cooks down in a skillet with the seared chicken (with water added to achieve the proper consistency and for the chicken to cook fully) until thick and syrupy.

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This is similar to how McClenny prepares her own version, but chicken is just one way to go. “Yellowtail is one of the fish we use for teriyaki often,” McClenny said. “You can just have fun with it and try it with different meats and even vegetables.” She recalls her mom frying chicken leg quarters coated in potato starch and serving them with a more traditional Japanese-style sauce flavored with ginger for Christmas. But McClenny said the first thing that teriyaki brings to mind for her is a burger served at McDonald’s in Japan.

Aranita is similar. “When I get off a plane in Hawaii, the first thing I do is go to [the fast food chain] Zippy’s and get a small fry and a teri burger,” which she describes as a hamburger patty served with a teriyaki sauce made of soy sauce and sugar, probably thickened with cornstarch, and topped with seared onions on a bun. And alongside chicken, teriyaki meatballs are “two classic things you would find in Hawaii that go on plate lunches” with scoops of rice and macaroni salad.

Teriyaki sauce isn’t just a marinade, glaze or condiment; Nakajima also adds it to braises and nabe (Japanese hot pot). He’ll add it to water or stock to use as the liquid to “braise chicken wings with vegetables low, slow in a crockpot and it comes out great.” He’s also mixed it with water, kombu and Szechuan peppercorns to braise mushrooms. Nakajima built a recent nabe with teriyaki sauce, kimchi, short ribs and vegetables.

No matter how you make it or use it, the sweet-savory taste of teriyaki sauce is one that most anyone will love, which might explain all its varied recipes and applications. As Nakajima said from Japan, “At the end of the day, that’s why it’s still popular over here as well, because it is a flavor profile that everyone can feel comfortable with.”

Get the recipe: Chicken Teriyaki

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