Teriyaki Chicken followed by Toffee Oranges

We had a family of 4 over for dinner and I cooked teriyaki chicken followed by toffee oranges.

The oranges were so good there was bowl licking going on! They really are delicious, I used to make them years ago and don't know how I forgot about them. You just pour hot toffee over orange slices and it dissolves to make a yummy sauce leaving behind some crispy toffee. This dish is also partly an excuse to eat King Island Creamy Indulgent Yogurt!

My Mum did a Japanese cooking course in the early 1990s and my whole family are still using the recipes. This teriyaki chicken is fantastic, it tastes like what you get in the restaurants and nothing like what comes out of a bottle.

You need mirin and sake for this recipe. These are both Japanese alcoholic beverages made from rice (though mirin is never drunk and is only used in cooking). Mirin is stronger and sweeter than sake. Sake can be used as a substitute for mirin (with an added pinch of sugar), and vice versa. If you cannot get a hold of either, you can use sweet sherry or Chinese shiaoxing wine or dry white wine at a stretch.

Mirin is easy to buy, they sell it at Harris Farm among other places. Sake is a bit harder to get, Essential Ingredient sell it although it is much cheaper at any asian supermarket in a city. If you are not a regular Japanese cook for the first time try and get some mirin and use it to replace the sake.

Teriyaki Chicken
serves 4
750g chicken thigh fillets, or steak scotch fillet - or enough to feed your family
1/4 chinese cabbage, sliced - enough to cover a plate
Sauce
¼ C soy sauce
¼ C sake
¼ C mirin
1 tbsp sugar

Place the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and reduce by about one third.

Heat a frypan and lightly grease with oil. Add the meat and pan fry on both sides; quickly for the beef, longer for the chicken. Add the teriyaki sauce, it will bubble up. Continue to cook and turn the meat once or twice to coat with sauce as it continues to reduce, until thick and sticky. If you want your steak rare, keep an eye on it, take it out when done and keep the sauce bubbling if not thickened.

Slice the meat into fingers and place on chinese cabbage on a serving plate and pour the sauce over.

Toffee Oranges
You could serve this with any number of things besides yogurt - cream, icecream, panna cotta, cake...
serves 4-6
4 oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/2 - 1 cm thick slices
350g caster sugar
1/2 C water
1 cinnamon stick
4 star anise
3 tbsp liqueur - whiskey, drambuie, grand marnier... (optional)
vanilla yogurt to serve - King Island is my favourite

Place orange slices in a shallow dish and drizzle with 1 tablespoons of the liqueur.

Place the sugar, water, cinnamon, star anise and 2 tablespoons of the liqueur in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Turn heat to medium and simmer for 10-15 minutes until golden WITHOUT STIRRING, brushing down the sides of the saucepan with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar crystals.

Immediately pour the caramel over the oranges and set aside for 2 hours, by which time some of the caramel with have liquified to make a sauce, leaving some shards of toffee.

Serve with vanilla yogurt or anything else that takes your fancy.