Teriyaki tastiness

Teriyaki chicken is one of my stepson's favs.  If we get sushi, he goes for the TC.  Japanese restaurant, TC.  Stir fry at home (where he chooses the sauce), TC.  So I thought it was about time I made some teriyaki sauce from scratch, rather than the pre-made ones, which we often find a bit too sweet and thick.  

This was a really tasty sauce - it is quite salty, but you can replace a little of the soy sauce with water, or (as I will be doing from now on) use a reduced salt soy sauce.  A friend who has spent quite a lot of time living in Japan suggested adding a dash of mirin - the original recipe also had that as an optional, but unfortunately I didn't have any on hand.  Mirin is a sweet rice wine, similar to (but less alcoholic than) sake.  It has been suggested that a dash of dry sherry is a reasonably substitute.  I don't however keep sherry in our cupboard, so...think I'll just grab me a bottle of mirin - it's in most supermarkets, in the international section.  

We had this with chicken, done in the crock pot.  You could, however, cook it in a pan (probably what I'll do next time).  You can use strips of beef (schnitzel would be good!), or tofu, or just a truckload of vegetables.  Thinking of veges - if you can't find edamame beans (I couldn't find them locally), then Watties do a frozen bean mix - it has yellow beans, snow pea type ones and edamame.  It was perfect for what I was wanting (steamed vege on the side).  However, some larger supermarkets do stock packets of frozen edamame beans.  

3 chicken breasts, cut into strips/chunks

2/3 cup soy sauce (reduced salt preferable)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do too)

1 tbsp mirin

1 tsp sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, finely grated

1 tbsp ginger, finely grated 

2 tbsp cornflour

3 tbsp cold water

mushrooms, capsicum, carrot - optional to add into the sauce

veges, steamed - beans, broccoli etc

sesame seeds, to garnish

rice, to serve

1. Mix soy, honey, vinegar, mirin, oil, garlic and ginger in a bowl until combined. 
2. Panfry chicken in pan, to sear a little.  Add sauce and cook on medium temp until chicken is cooked through.  
3. While chicken is cooking, prepare rice and cut up veges.  
4. If adding any veges directly into the teriyaki (mushrooms etc), do this now.  
5. Mix cornflour and water together, to make a slurry.  Stir this into teriyaki, and continue to cook for a further 10 minutes, or until thickened.  
6. Serve on rice with steamed veges alongside, sprinkled with sesame seeds.