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Chciken yakitori, when done right, is a thing of beauty. Succulent peices of chicken skewerd with tart spring onions, all marinaded in a delicious teriyaki style thick glaze. Lovely. I have it most times I go to Wagamamas. I have made it before and it was wonderful but, last weekend, blostered by 3 pints of Kirin, I attempted to make it again. Oh how horribly wrong it went. Basic Yakitori sauce is made like this (although there seem to be loads of variations) 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup mirin 1-2 tablespoons sugar Marinade the chicken for about half an hour then simmer until the marinade is half its original volume then chargrill the chicken, absting with the sauce. The sauce should caramelise slightly. I was going to serve it garlic and herb rice (which I also nicked from Wagamama) and lightly steamed broccoli fried with sliced chilli and garlic. So where did I go wrong? Well, pretty much everywhere but let's start with the rice. Instead of short grained sticky Japanese rice I used Long grain American rice which didn't work nearly as well - it was too loose to really fit in with the testures of the meal. And I didn't have any herbs to go in the garlic and herb dressing. But this was a relatively minor transgression. The broccoli would have been fine until like an idiot and flustered by the impending distaster which was the chicken I put in some soy sauce. Which was stupid becuase the broccoli immediately absorbed it makign the whole caboodle incredibly salty and an unnattractive brownish colour. I'm not sure why I shook some in. I blame madness. And finally to the chicken. This was a veritable catalogue of erros - first off I didn't have any mirin which is sweetened rice wine. Instead I used rice wine vinegar which was a dumb thing todo since you need the sweetness to counteract the soy. Of which I only had dark when light would have been much better. Then I didn't marinate for long enough since we were hungry and also didn't reduce the sauce for long enough. In order to try and compensate when i realised I turned the heat up under the griddle pan leading to bitter tasting burnt bits on the glaze and unpleasantly dry, salty chicken. All in all a complete disaster. Let this be a lesson to you.
Generated at 13:15 on 29 Jan 2004 by mariachi 0.41