Teriyaki Chicken and miso soup with spinach
This is a really easy and quick dish, which will impress guests as well as a hungry family - big and small. You need the following:
Boneless chicken thighs with skin (we buy them in Netto, see picture)
Freshly cooked or steamed Japanese rice
Iceberg lettuce
Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce
Mirin
(if you don't normally use mirin, you can also use Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce w. honey og and leave out mirin in this recipe)
Begin by taking out the chicken. As mentioned, we use this one from Netto:
Take the meat out of the tray and place the whole pieces with the skin side down on the pan and fry at medium high heat for 7-10 minutes, until the skin is golden and crispy:
The meat is not fried on the other side yet. While they fry on the skin side, wash the lettuce, slice it in wide strips and 1-2 times across. Let it dry for a bit.
Cook the rice according to our rice recipe, so they're done when the chicken is finished.
When the skin is crispy, remove the meat pieces from the pan and place them on a plate. Then add teriyaki sauce to the pan until it covers, so you don't have any "dry spots". We don't remove the chicken fat from the pan first, but you can of course do that if you want a slightly lighter dish. Add 2-4 large spoons of mirin, and let the sauce boil for 1-2 minutes (yes it gets a bit messy when frying chicken):
Place the chicken pieces on the pan again, but this time with the skin side up, like this:
It's important that the skin side isn't placed in the sauce, as the skin will then become soft. The pieces are fried for 7-10 minutes at medium high heat, until the sauces has been reduced and the meat is lightly caramellized. When done, place the meat on a cutting board with the skin side down:
The pieces are cut in 1 cm wide strips using a sharp knife. At the same time a large bowl (larger than the meat) is filled less than half way with freshly cooked rice:
Cover the rice with a good layer of lettuce:
In case you want a richer taste, you can pour 1-2 large spoons of the pan sauce over the rice before placing the lettuce on top. Add the sliced meat with the skin side up, and garnish with a bit of mayonnaise according to your taste (you can also leave it out). Now the main dish is served:
We have chosen the easy miso-shiru (miso soup) for today's dish, this time with spinach:
First prepare the packets with the miso paste and freeze dried spinach:
Squeeze the miso into the bowl:
Then add spinach:
Finally add 130 ml of boiling water and stir for a few seconds. Dinner is served - enjoy!
