This is another post about yakitori sauce. If I’d been wise and efficient, I would have frozen the sauce I had made last spring (in the fall when the weather got too cold to grill outside) because the more you use and re-use this sauce, the better it gets.
Regular readers: I’ll be updating and fixing this post for a few days…
Basting Sauce for Yakitori
Yakitori: Tare
3 cups sauce
page 405
- 16 chicken wings
- 1 1/2 cups sake (rice wine)
- 2 2/3 cups mirin (sweet cooking wine)
- 6 Tablespoons sugar
- 2 2/3 cups shoyu (soy sauce)
In a broiler, or on a grill, cook the chicken wings until they are charred over about half of their surfaces.
In a large pot, bring the sake and mirin to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, add the sugar, and cook until the sugar is dissolved, stirring. Add the shoyu and chicken wings, and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking, the sauce will be thick and glossy.
Strain the sauce through a strainer lined with cotton cloth, reserving the chicken wings. Let the sauce cool to room temperature, then refrigerate it for as long as a month.
Reheat the tare before using it, and once every week between uses.
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Tess's Japanese Kitchen 
Interesting. I’ve seen it on TV many times how the sauce is used over and over again. And the older the sauce the better the flavors. So by reheating the sauce once a week, there’s no worries about contamination? That’s all one has to do?
If you are worried about it, freeze it—I’m just a home cook with no training in detecting bacteria etc. I do however follow the principle of “If in doubt, throw it out.” Or freeze it.
But I’ve used this recipe for 2 summers, without negative effects. If you cook only chicken (never dip fish into it!!), it does get a very nice flavor. This is a double batch in this post because sometimes I’ve put the sauce in with applewood which smokes and flavors the food. But I don’t always want that smokey flavor.
Also, if chuncks of chicken fall off into the sauce, I strain the sauce through a sieve so the sauce stays all liquid with no leftover pieces of meat.
Unfortunately in the last 2 autumns I forgot about the stuff when it got too cold for grilling, and so it got shoved to the back of the fridge–from Halloween ’til after Thanksgiving. So instead of saving it for the next season, I threw it out.
I think that duck confit (or goose confit, etc.) would be similar in principle to this. I had some goose confit for months and didn’t even heat it once a week.
thanks for the tip! i already came back from the market with ingredients and a store bought sauce (yikes). i’ll definitely have to try this version for the next time :)
Hey rick,
Best wishes to you! Have no worries.
The best sauce is made with the love of your friends—I made that little quip up on my own. (I’m sure there are more erudite or literary expressions of the same idea though…).
If you understand what I mean, then you know that a great meal is first composed with your well loved guests in mind. Just making an effort to please your guests—it’s the party, the personal touch—not an outside standard..
A restaurant meal involves spending money and therefore raised expectations for the quality of the food.
Just make your guests feel good.
≥^,^≤