Teriyaki-esque Chicken Thighs with Onions

From Ars Cookbook

Submitted by frankencaster

I realize this isn’t a “real” Teriyaki, but it tastes good to me.

Ingredients

• 6-8 medium chicken thighs, defrosted. I like to use boneless, but bone-in will work.
• 1 medium sized onion.
• Garlic to taste
• Ginger to taste
• Chopped jalapeño if you like it spicy.
• Rice wine
• Soy Sauce
• Peanut oil
• Corn Starch
• Salt
• Pepper

I picked thighs because they’re IMO the tastiest part of the chicken. The fact that they’re cheap doesn’t hurt either. You could use any chicken part or any meat you want. Beef, pork, just make sure it's cut (and pounded if need be) to cook through relatively quickly in the pan.

Directions

Lightly season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat up a medium size pan (big enough to put thighs in without crowding the pan) until it’s good and hot. Not surface of the sun hot, but hot. As Martin Yan taught me, hot wok + cold oil = food never sticks. Reduce the heat to about medium and add about 1 tbsp of peanut oil – a little more if you’re using stainless steel.

Crush and chop some fresh garlic & ginger (and jalapeño) and sauté, stirring constantly until it’s got just a little bit of color on the garlic. Don’t burn the garlic, it’ll get bitter - unless you like that flavor then burn away.

French a whole medium onion and toss in the pan. Add a little bit of salt and sauté until they begin to caramelize. You don’t need a whole lot of color on them.

Remove the onions & garlic from pan and place in chicken thighs. If your pan is too dry you could add a little more oil.

Raise the heat just a touch and let them cook until the just start to get a nice brown on one side. Flip and brown the other side.

Add the onions and garlic back to the pan and raise the a little more and get everything nice and hot and sizzly, but be careful not to burn. You want some color on the bottom of the pan to deglaze.

remove the contents of the pan and REMOVE THE PAN FROM THE FLAME. Deglaze the pan with enough rice wine to get all the brown tasty bits off the bottom, and return to heat. Be careful not to burn your house down. Deglazing with alcohol should be done carefully!! Crank the heat up a little and add some soy to taste. You don’t want it too salty. I prefer dark soy but you can use light soy or low-sodium soy, whatever you like will work.

bring that up to a simmer and reduce a little. If it’s getting too dry you can add more rice wine a little at a time, but be careful of the flame! Always remove the pan from the vicinity of the flame when adding alcohol!

When it’s reduced slightly and smells like heaven, remove from heat and slowly whisk in some corn starch and water. Whisking in the corn starch off the heat will avoid lumps. You don’t want to make the sauce too thick, it should just cling to the chicken. If you thicken it too much you can thin with some wine.

Bring it back to a simmer (you need to cook the corn starch, but not too much) and add the chicken and onions back to the pan. Stir to coat everything well and reheat the chicken and onions.

Serve over some white rice with a salad or some steamed broccoli or whatever you like.

Any other veggies you'd like to add to the onions will work too - snow pea, bell pepper, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, carrots - whatever you like. Just Make sure that you adjust your cooking time appropriately.