A tiny apartment kitchen is no obstacle to delicious charcoal-grilled flavour. Take weekday teriyaki chicken to the next level with this trick.
Time: 4/5
Flavour takes time to build, after all.
Effort: 4/5
The smoking setup is a bit of work, but the effort brings results.
MacGyvering
After the epic Christmas barbecue, I had some loose pieces of charcoal left over that weren’t enough to grill with again. Truth be told, this was a problem I was looking forward to having. I have long wondered if it was possible to recreate that delicious smoky charcoal grilled flavour in my tiny apartment kitchen.
Yes, liquid smoke is a thing, but the flavour profile tends to lean heavily towards American barbecue. Sometimes I just want the charcoal flavour and nothing else – in fact, some discerning restaurants spend big bucks to source Japanese binchotan specifically to get clean pure flavours.
Having charcoal on hand gives me the opportunity to experiment with a sort of DIY smoking setup. I’ve seen videos of people setting charcoal alight, pouring cooking oil over it, and covering it tightly to perfuse a container with the resulting smoke.
So that’s what I did. I made teriyaki chicken like I usually do, but went the extra mile of letting them hang out with a smouldering piece of charcoal inside a pot with a tight fitting lid. Sure, it’s more work and more dishes to do than my usual purely utilitarian meal preps, but the results were worth it.
The chicken picked up a decent amount of the smoky charcoal-grilled flavour, mostly in the skin and the sauce. That gave this teriyaki chicken a more sophisticated, elevated feel deserving of a weekend dinner. The effect is quite impressive, considering all I had to work with was a tiny apartment kitchen and no special equipment at all.
I’m certainly going to try this trick again. But before that, I’ll show you how I did it this time.
Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 0
Dramatis Personae
Served 5.
- 1kg boneless skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 piece of charcoal
- 1.2kg broccolini
- Several cloves of garlic, minced
- Salt, to taste
For the teriyaki sauce
- 5 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp mirin
- 3 tbsp Chinese rice wine, or sake
Also served with 600g of broccolini. Always eat your veggies!
Executive summary
- Lightly salt, then sear the chicken thighs on both sides. In the meantime, make rice, and wash the vegetables.
- Once chicken thighs are done and reserved, stir fry the broccolini in the same pan. Add minced garlic towards the end, and salt to taste.
- Reserve the vegetables. In the pan, simmer the sauce ingredients together until combined and thickened.
- Return the chicken. Toss each piece to coat, then brûlée each side with a kitchen torch. Repeat this several times to build up the glaze.
- Make sure the room is well ventilated. In a small heat proof container, light the charcoal on fire. Place it in among the chicken, drizzle 1 tsp of neutral oil over it, then immediately cover with a tight fitting lid.
- Smoke the chicken while portioning out the rice and the vegetables.
- Assemble and serve.
Play by Play
Searing the chicken in batches feels like the longest step. You don’t need to mother it too much though, especially if you use relatively gentle heat after preheating the pan. Like you should.
There’s plenty of time while searing the chicken to clean the broccolini and mince some garlic. Work in parallel for maximum time efficiency.
You best believe I’m making good use of that fond and drippings from searing the chicken! Cooking the vegetables in the pan also cleans the pan up in preparation for making the teriyaki sauce.
The pan is truly multipurpose here – I make the sauce right inside of it, toss the chicken in it like it’s a mixing bowl, simmer the chicken in it, then use it as a heat-proof working platform to brulee the teriyaki sauce into a glaze.
This is the tricky part – light the charcoal on fire, fan it until it’s hot, then pour cooking oil over it. You want to make sure the kitchen is well ventilated, and that the pot lid is on hand to trap all the smoke that’s going to immediately come off.
Lid goes on immediately, to let the delicious charcoal smokiness permeate the chicken. My personal suspicion is that it’s the thick layer of sauce and the fat that absorbs most of the flavour.
And here’s the final product. Might not look like much, but the taste is phenomenal – the wife described it as being “sophisticated”. A testament to how putting in the love can turn simple ingredients into fantastic meals, by doing small things well every step of the way.
Charcoal Smoked Teriyaki Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 kg boneless skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 piece of charcoal
- 1.2 kg broccolini or vegetables of choice
- Several cloves of garlic minced
- Salt to taste
- 600 g vegetables of choice
For the teriyaki sauce
- 5 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp mirin
- 3 tbsp Chinese rice wine or sake
Instructions
- Lightly salt, then sear the chicken thighs on both sides. In the meantime, make rice, and wash the vegetables.
- Once chicken thighs are done and reserved, stir fry the vegetables in the same pan. Add minced garlic towards the end, and salt to taste.
- Reserve the vegetables. In the pan, simmer the sauce ingredients together until combined and thickened.
- Return the chicken. Toss each piece to coat, then brûlée each side with a kitchen torch. Repeat this several times to build up the glaze.
- Make sure the room is well ventilated. In a small heat proof container, light the charcoal on fire. Place it in among the chicken, drizzle 1 tsp of neutral oil over it, then immediately cover with a tight fitting lid.
- Smoke the chicken while portioning out the rice and the vegetables.
- Assemble and serve.
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