Quick and Easy Teriyaki Cod (鱈の照り焼き)

If you love teriyaki, then you're going to love this recipe! Today I'm going to show you how to make super quick and easy Teriyaki Cod Fillet.

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Teriyaki

What is Teriyaki?

In Japanese, the word "teriyaki" is actually a style of cooking. "Teri" (照り) means glossy and "yaki" (焼き) means to fry or cook. So teriyaki is a way to cook a glossy sauce that sticks to the surface of whatever you're making.

What is Teriyaki Sauce made of?

Teriyaki sauce is made up of four main ingredients:

• Soy Sauce (I use Kikkoman)
• Sake
• Mirin (I use Kikkoman)
• Sugar

If like cooking Japanese food, I highly recommend these 4 ingredients in your cupboard! You'll definitely use them a lot!

If you can't get mirin, you can leave it out and increase the amount of sugar instead.

Sake is an important element of teriyaki, but if you really can't use it, you can try using Chinese rice wine, dry sherry or dry white wine instead. If you don't want to use alcohol in your cooking, you can also swap it for water, but it will have less flavour and won't taste like authentic teriyaki.

What goes well with Teriyaki?

Of course, chicken is the most popular teriyaki sauce dish. But teriyaki goes great with fish or vegetables too. You can use it in stir fries, side dishes etc. There are lots of possibilities when it comes to teriyaki sauce!

Teriyaki Fish

The next most popular teriyaki dish (after teriyaki chicken) is probably yellowtail in Japan and salmon in the west. But teriyaki sauce goes very nicely with any white fish too. White fish is soft, flakey and mild in taste so teriyaki sauce really compliments it. Here are some great options.

• Salmon
• Yellowtail (flounder)
• Cod
• Halibut
• Sole

Skin on

Whether you're making teriyaki chicken or teriyaki fish, I always recommend using a fillet that has the skin on. It becomes crispy and delicious, you can definitely eat the skin! This is also why I always use skin-on chicken thigh when making teriyaki dishes.

Using corn starch or potato starch, you can crisp up the skin before making the sauce. The sauce tends to stick better to a crispy surface.

Teriyaki Cod

For this recipe I'm going to use cod. Cod is probably the most common fish I saw in the U.K (usually in fish and chips form) but it's not popular at all in Japan. Teriyaki sauce goes great with cod, so let's get started!

Watch our video on How to Make Teriyaki Cod!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can I make teriyaki sauce without mirin/sake?

Teriyaki only uses 4 ingredients and each one plays an important part. Some recipes don't use mirin, it's possible to use more sugar instead of mirin. (Mirin is a sweetened rice wine)

Sake is more important and I don't recommend switching it out. But if you have to, then you can try switching it for Chinese rice wine, dry sherry or even just plain water. (It won't be so flavourful though.)

What does teriyaki taste like?

It's a sweet soy glaze so of course it's sweet, a bit salty and a bit tangy.

What do you eat with teriyaki salmon?

Any teriyaki dish tastes best with rice. You can serve it on the side or in a bowl, it's up to you! You could even wrap it in rice and make onigiri if you like!

Should I marinate the salmon?

Because teriyaki sauce has sugar, it's better not to marinate. If you do, the sugar will burn when you fry it and it won't taste so good.

What is teriyaki sauce made of?

Teriyaki sauce is simply soy sauce, sugar, sake and mirin.

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