The Secrets to Sarku Sucess
Hello,
I am a chef who worked for a Sarku Japan for 4 years while in High School. I learned every recipe they ever had, and remember them off by heart. For legal reasons, I cannot give you EXACT recipes, but I can lead you on the path to the ever-elusive Sarku (or Sakkio, as it was called when I worked there) Chicken Teriyaki.
First, the chicken. It's thigh meat, people. A breast will never come close to the texture (or moisture level) you are seeking. Specifically, boneless/skinless YOUNG chicken thigh meat. Since I have found it difficult to purchase this for home cooking, you will have to buy a big package of chicken thighs and remove the bones and skin. (leave SOME of the fat, it is necessary and you will understand why later) Cut your chicken into bite-sized pieces (preferably while it is still partially frozen).
Second, the chicken IS marinated. But not in teriyaki sauce. The sauce in and of itself could take up an entire chapter of a novel, but we'll touch on that later. Put your chicken in a large tupperware container. Add water, cooking sherry, granulated garlic, vegetable oil, white pepper, and soy sauce. Again, can't give out exacts, but try a ratio of 4 water to 1 soy sauce to 1 oil. A decent amount of pepper, and just a tiny bit of garlic (granulated garlic is strong, and the finished product should have an UNDERTONE of garlic, but not a FLAVOR of garlic). Add more liquid than you think you need - the chicken will "drink" a lot of this fluid. Put on a pair of gloves and massage the **** out of this, combining all the ingredients, and coating all the chicken. If the chicken is still too frozen, let it set for a while to thaw, and then massage it.
FUN LITTLE BIT OF KNOWLEDGE: We at Sakkio used to refer to this process as "pushing" the chicken - until a goofy man from the Sarku/Sakkio Head Office refered to it as "massaging" the chicken. So I use the term "massage" with a smirk and a tongue-in-cheek inside joke.
"Massage" your chicken every few hours, and allow it to marinate in the fridge overnight. Yes, overnight. You didn't think something so wonderful was going to be made up in 5 mintues, did you?! Plus, the path to making good teriyaki sauce is long and tedious - so you will need that day to contemplate the chemistry of SAUCE.
TRUE Sakkio sauce was composed of only five components. That's right. Just five. The problem there lies within the fact that ONE of the ingredients is extremely complicated to make and nearly impossible to duplicate: the soup base. You read correctly, folks - the ultimate secret ingredient in Sakkio sauce is a complex soup stock simmered in a GIANT sauce pot overnight. The soup itself was a myriad of ingredients, many of them scraps, from the Sakkio kitchen. Beef trimmings and bones, carrots, onions, cabbage pieces, pulverized ginger fingers, smashed whole garlic bulbs, and more stacked into the pot - which was then topped off with water. The result, after a nights worth of simmering and straining - was a somewhat fatty golden-colored BROTH OF LIFE, packed with nutrients and a distinctive flavor, which, like so many other Sakkio items, carried untertones of many things but the flavor of nothing. The stock itself made a glorious breakfast when simply poured over rice, and gave the lucky diner a days worth of energy.
While you are obviously welcome to experiment with a "from scratch" Sakkio soup base, you will save time, money, and broken spirits by cheating your way out of it. The Sakkio stock was a one of a kind creation, and unless you have access to an Asian kitchen, a ginormous sauce pot, and about sixty-five years of Chinese culinary know-how - your stock will always come out stinking up your home, and tasting like oily over-cooked cabbage/onion water. Trust me.
I recommend getting yourself a good chicken stock, one that is NOT salty (these flavors must be DEEP, but not OVERPOWERING), and simmering it with some roughly chopped ginger and garlic, thus giving you a tasty Asian-flavoured soup. If you can find an Asian stock to work with that already incorporates these flavors - even better!
Once you have an acceptable soup (remember - NOT salty - we will be adding plenty of salt element in a moment. Your soup should be flavorful, but rediculously bland at the same time), it's time to go to town. Both Kikkomann Soy AND Terkiyaki sauce are used here, in a ratio of about 3 parts teriyaki to one part soy. The soup should be about 60% of your total product, with the soy/teriyaki mix making up the rest.
Next it's time for the sweetening of the beast. This comes, not from honey (as I have heard suggested), but from brown sugar. Since there are not any numbers here, the amount is difficult to guage - I recommend warming your sauce over a burner and slowly adding brown sugar until you are satisfied with the level of sweetness.
Now you have yourself a sweet and savory brown sauce that is just DYING to be drizzled over grilled chicken.... but wait.... this sauce is very watery - not the lovely "sticks to every bite" consistency that you crave? Fear not! A quick slurry (mixture of cornstarch and cold water) will do the trick nicely.
Bring your sauce up to a boil and SLOWLY - REALLY SLOWLY - add some of your slurry. The consistency is very important here, and there is no turning back. Stir in your slurry with a wire whisk, as to not create any lumps. Give it thirty seconds or so to accept the starches and thicken up. Your sauce should ONLY be thick enough to leave a glaze on the spoon, or stick to the side of the pot if you splash a little up there - no thicker. If it's still like water, add a little slurry. If it follows the aforementioned properties, you're sauce is done. Congratulations. You have just developed a beautiful, beautiful thing.
This sauce can be refridgerated overnight while your chicken marinates, or made up the same day that you are cooking - it matters not because you will have to warm it up for serving either way (careful to warm it slowly and stir frequently - once thickened, the sauce will want to burn very easily).
Now back to the lovely chicken. You have now "massaged" and marinated your chicken overnight, and it's time to mix it. Mix it. As in with a mixer. Or, if you are REALLY lucky, a Kitchenaid Mixer with a dough hook. Or ANY mixer with a dough hook. This is a huge step that cannot be deleted, so don't even think about it. The chicken/marinade mix needs to run at least a 30 minute course through the mixer on a slow setting. You will know it is done because all of the fat will be separated to look almost like fatty off-white snow, and the whole mix will look like pukey slop. This is good. Trust me.
Once your chicken is a slop that you wouldn't even want to feed to the pigs, it's high time you fired up a flat-top grill (one of those electric ones will do nicely). You are shooting for 500 degrees, which, is probably the highest setting on most of those grills. Be SURE that the grill is SUPER hot before adding your chicken - if you have access to a infared thermometer, this would be an excellent time to whip that gadget out and impress all of your neighbors.
Add a bit of vegetable oil to your grill and spread it out with a steel spatula. Add a scoop of your chicken slop (enough to decently cover the grill, but not so much as to dramatically kill the heat) - and spread it into a nice thin layer with your spatula. Use a chopping motion to do this, DO NOT flatten the chicken with the broad end of the tool. PLEASE. You've come this far, don't ruin it now!
Cook the first side of the chicken until golden brown and delicious - about 3 mintues. Don't play with it. Just let it grill and carmelize. Then flip and do the same with the second side. When both sides of the chicken are finished, add a happy scoop of your sauce and use your spatula and a tine fork (like you would use for grilling) to chop up your chicken teriyaki into lovely bite-sized pieces. Allow to cook for another 30 seconds or so, and plate onto your rice and/or veggies. Add another ladle of sauce, and you are in Sarku/Sakkio heaven.
Play with it a bit. You WILL develop the right flavors. Don't be afraid to experiment, and don't get frustrated if your first batch isn't a Food Court delicacy.
Any questions / comments / misc. trivia - feel free to ask.
Sayonara!
