Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

-Today on "Cook's Country," Ryan visits the Emerald City and grills up Seattle Chicken Teriyaki.

I tell the inspiring story of Chef Nobu, And Julia makes Bridget miso black cod.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

Monument grills offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills to suit every level.

Our mission is to ignite your passion to pursue the art of grilling.

Learn more at monumentgrills.com.

-In Seattle, chicken teriyaki is as iconic as coffee or salmon or even the Space Needle.

It's simple, affordable, packed full of flavor, and great on the go.

Here, chicken thighs are bathed in a salty sweet sauce and grilled to impart a smoky, charred flavor.

Walk down any street and you're bound to see working folks on their lunch breaks eating out of Styrofoam boxes.

I met up with local food writer Tan Vinh to learn how teriyaki fits into the story of Seattle.

-You can tell the immigrant and the refugee story in Seattle through this one dish.

When you look across the country, what do these immigrants open?

They open laundromats and nail salons.

And in Seattle, we open teriyaki shops.

And that's what we did.

-And the first man to open a teriyaki shop in Seattle, the one who started it all is Toshi Kasahara.

-He was the godfather of this dish.

And he was the one guy that you go to.

He made this a Seattle dish because if you wanted teriyaki, where did you go in the '70s?

You went to Toshi's.

-Toshi came to the US from Japan for college, and he opened his first teriyaki shop in 1976.

-And about 4 or 5 years after I open the second, then I opened a few more.

Then people suggested me to start selling franchises.

-Today, Toshi name can be seen on Teriyaki restaurants across the city.

And why teriyaki?

Because it's what he knew.

-When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandma in the kitchen, and I think I had a very similar recipe for my own.

I was really young.

-Like most of the teriyaki spots in the city, Toshi serves his over short grain rice with a side of slaw, and after a few bites, it's easy to see how his chicken started a movement.

It's juicy with a satisfying kiss of smoke.

After learning the history of the Seattle teriyaki scene and meeting the Godfather himself, it was time to put that knowledge into action in the form of eating.

And I invited along my old friend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.

Our mission -- Eat some chicken teriyaki.

-Reliable and delicious and cheap.

-Just like me.

-Yeah.

[ Laughter ] -We met up at Grill Bird, a teriyaki joint with a Hawaiian influence.

So this is, uh -- This already tastes a little bit different than Toshi's right off the bat.

I find this, like, sweeter right up front.

-Less garlicky, tropical, pineapple.

-Yeah.

-I would say.

And that's not a coincidence, right?

'Cause we know that this is a Hawaiian influence.

-As a New Yorker, it actually, to me reflects the New York pizza scene in a lot of ways, where, you know, when you ask people, like, what's your favorite -- what's the best teriyaki joint?

Like nine out of ten times, they're going to say like, the one that's closest to them.

-The next stop of my teriyaki tour was Ta Joia, a teriyaki shop that draws on owner Yoo-Mi Lee's many years of living and cooking in Brazil.

When I arrived during the lunch rush, the restaurant was bustling and full of customers.

Yoo-Mi and her daughters run the scratch kitchen to make everything to order.

And instead of the usual coleslaw, they serve their teriyaki with Brazilian sides like feijoada and vinaigrette.

That's some of the best feijoada I've ever had.

And of all places in, like, a teriyaki joint in Seattle, I love it.

Each teriyaki place we visited had its own twist, but the formula stayed the same.

Tender grilled chicken coated in that irresistible salty, sweet glaze.

It's a simple dish with humble beginnings, feeding a city.

And all because of one man.

-Bryan, that trip to Seattle looked really fun.

But also, I had no idea that chicken teriyaki was such a huge part of the food culture in Seattle.

-I mean, I was taken by surprise, too.

It's as big as coffee, as big as salmon, as big as the Space Needle, essentially.

You know, it's just all over the place.

It's a great grab-and-go food that hits a lot of notes.

-Now, you went to a lot of places, but Toshi, of course, is the titan of teriyaki.

-Toshi's is definitely like the gold standard.

Everybody like kind of borrows a little bit from him.

So we're going to begin by making our teriyaki sauce in the same style as Toshi.

So we have 1 cup of soy sauce.

This is just regular granulated sugar, 1/2 cup of sugar.

-Interesting, so 1 cup of soy to 1/2 cup of sugar.

I know a lot of recipes use equal parts.

So this is substantially less sugar.

-Yeah, it's a lot less sweet than a lot of versions out there, and that was one of the things that was off-putting about some is that they can be very sweet.

I didn't like that.

-Yeah.

-And then 2 tablespoons of mirin, which is a slightly sweet Japanese rice wine.

Just give it like a little boozy element.

And we're going to turn this on and bring it up to a boil over medium high heat.

And that's really just to dissolve the sugar.

It's not going to be any corn starch that goes into this.

We're not going to make it thick and gloppy.

The only thickness this is going to get is from that melted sugar.

-Interesting.

-So we'll just give this a whisk.

As soon as this comes to a boil, the sugar's dissolved, We're going to set it off heat and let it cool down to room temperature.

Then add it to a measuring cup and start using it in the rest of our recipe.

-Okay.

-Our teriyaki sauce is cooled down and it yielded about 1 1/4 cups.

We're going to make our marinade with a portion of that teriyaki.

So we're just going to peel and smash five cloves of garlic.

Smash this.

Drop that in there.

Next we're going to peel.

This is a two inch piece of ginger.

I tend to just use a paring knife.

-Ah, and just trim it off.

-Just trim it off like that.

So we're just going to slice this thin.

Then we're going to drop that into our blender.

-Nice.

-And now we're going to use 3/4 cup of our teriyaki sauce to make our marinade.

And look at how viscous this is, you know, as it pours off the spoon.

-Yeah.

Almost like... -Like maple syrup.

-I was just going to say that.

-Got there before you did.

So I own that now.

So, again, 3/4 of a cup is going in here.

Okay, so we'll save the rest of this teriyaki sauce for serving after we've grilled the chicken.

So we're just going to process this for about 20 seconds until everything's nice and homogenous.

Okay, looks good.

You could smell it.

Just perfect with ginger and garlic.

-You really smell the ginger.

-All right, now we're going to marinate our chicken.

So, when it comes to chicken and grilling especially with chicken thighs, I'm not one for trimming it.

-Really?

-Yeah, I like when those bits of fat get nice and crispy on the grill.

We're going to marinate this in a zipper lock bag.

This is 3 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs.

So, we're going to take our marinade, just pour it into the bag here.

-You're a very tidy cook, I have to say.

There is not a drop out of place.

Wait till the end, there's going to be sauce all over our faces and all over our shirts.

And then we just pull the collar of the bag up and force the air out as you're sealing it.

Nice tight seal.

Before you lay it on it's side, you always want to kind of make sure that it is indeed sealed.

And then I just kind of move it around, flip it around a little bit, make sure the marinade is touching all those pieces of chicken.

Didn't seem like very much marinade.

It was only 3/4 a cup, but it really gets in there once you start moving it around.

Now, although the zipper lock bag looks like it's sealed, I always take precaution when I'm putting it in the refrigerator and I always put it inside of a bowl.

And we're just going to refrigerate this for at least an hour.

-Okay.

-I'm telling you if you want it to be the best possible chicken, go for the full 24 hours.

-Okay.

So a whole day.

-Whole day.

All right, so we have six cores of charcoal briquettes here.

So we'll dump those, in spread those into our charcoal grill here.

-I can feel it.

It's hot.

-We've been cooking down till we've got this nice layer of thin gray ash on top.

Use our tongs to spread them around a little bit.

We're looking for a nice single level fire.

That is really, really hot.

-It is.

[ Laughter ] Now the bottom grill vents are open.

So we get that nice flow of oxygen throughout the grill.

We'll drop in our grill grate, cover it, making sure our lid vent is fully open.

And we're going to let that grill grate heat up until it's nice and hot and takes about five minutes.

It's been five minutes.

Our grill grate is nice and hot.

-Mm-hmm.

-All right, we're going to scrape that.

Make sure it's nice and clean.

Then we're just going to dip our paper towel into some oil and just give it a light brush to help the food not stick on the grill.

All right, now we can grab our chicken and we'll start putting that on the grill.

I like to start the chicken with the boned side down.

The gnarlier looking side 'cause I like to get those crispy bits of odd shaped meat on the pure heat of the grill right when it's still very, very hot.

-Oh, I just got a whiff of teriyaki sauce on charcoal.

-Yeah.

-Man, that smells good.

-This is one of the most simple and delicious recipes I think we've ever done.

All right, so that's it.

We're all set there.

We're going to let it cook uncovered for about six minutes until the underside gets nice and charred.

-All right.

-All right.

It's been about six minutes.

We could take a look at some of our chicken here.

-Oh-ho-ho!

-See, how it's -nicely charred there.

-That's gorgeous.

-Yeah.

Those nicely charred pieces we want to flip.

If they're not nicely charred we'll let them go for another couple of minutes.

This one's perfect right here.

-That one's perfection.

-All right.

So we will flip these over.

We'll let this chicken continue to cook for another 6 to 8 minutes or so until it hits at least 175 degrees.

And it's nicely charred on that second side.

Okay, Julia, it's been about six minutes on the second side here.

-Those are gorgeous.

-Nicely charred, nicely browned.

So we just want to tempt them and make sure they're hitting at least 175 degrees.

So you can see that the thighs have like a thin point in the middle and like thicker sides on the ends.

-Yep.

-So we want to go into one of those thicker sides and get at least 175.

And here we're at 176.

Perfect.

And now we can just take them off the grill.

We'll showcase that smooth side.

-Oh!

That is picture perfect chicken.

-Really good chicken.

All right.

And our final piece of chicken.

-Mmm!

-Caps it off at the end there.

So that chicken looks great.

We need to let it rest for five minutes.

And we're gonna do that underneath a little bit of foil to trap the heat.

All right.

Best part of the day, right?

-[ Laughs ] Oh!

-All right, let's slice a few pieces for us.

-When you order it, it comes sliced?

-Yes.

It comes ready to go in a Styrofoam container.

-Ready to eat on the go?

-Yes.

With rice and coleslaw.

-Mmm!

-All right.

Can I, uh, sauce you up?

-Sauce me.

-Now, this was the litmus test for a lot of the places I went to.

-Ooh!

-How good is the sauce?

-It's like a little bit of a glaze but then it's soaking down into the rice.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mmm.

-All right.

Well, cheers.

-Yeah.

Cheers.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

That is good teriyaki.

The flavor is in the chicken.

It's not just on top.

That's the marinating.

And it's balanced.

It's not too sweet.

I make a teriyaki at home for my family, this is so much better.

Mine is too sweet.

This, you can taste the chicken.

You can taste the garlic and the ginger and the soy.

-Yeah, and I especially like that since you have a little bit of that teriyaki in the marinade, the chicken is quick to char, you know, you get those little burnt bits, especially the fatty bits which if you dig into the corners of that chicken, those fatty bits are where it's at.

-Bryan, this is delicious.

Thank you for bringing some of Seattle back here to "Cook's Country."

-My pleasure.

-So there you have it.

If you want to make the ultimate chicken teriyaki, start by making your own teriyaki sauce and using some of it in the marinade.

Marinate boneless, skinless chicken thighs for 24 hours and use a ripping hot grill in order to get some good char.

From "Cook's Country," with special thanks to all of our friends in the Emerald City, Seattle chicken teriyaki.

I'm dying to see you roll up with a bag of this at someone's barbecue.

-[ Laughs ] -Today, I'm making sweet potato salad.

You want to start by adding some oil and salt to sweet potatoes, and toss it up.

Now, roast the potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet in a 450 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Let the potatoes cool for 30 more minutes.

Now, in a large bowl, you're going to add some more oil, some scallions, lime juice, jalapeno, cumin, paprika, pepper, garlic and allspice and then stir it all together.

All right, now, take your cook potatoes from earlier and add them to the bowl, along with some cilantro and some almonds, and stir everything together until it's combined.

Now it's time to serve this gorgeous sweet potato salad.

-The story of miso black cod is a story of resilience.

It's the story of Chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa -- Chef Nobu, as he is known, is credited with putting miso black cod on the map.

Though the technique of preserving fish and sweet white miso originated long before his rise to culinary stardom, ever since he first tasted sushi, Nobu wanted to become a chef, but his path wasn't always easy.

After getting expelled from high school, Nobu worked at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo.

It wasn't long until his talents were noticed, earning him a job opportunity in Lima, Peru.

But the gig in Lima ended sooner than expected.

So, Nobu left to start another restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska.

Then, only 50 days after opening, the restaurant caught fire and burned to the ground.

At this point, Nobu was understandably discouraged, but he gave his dream one more shot and opened a small sushi bar in L.A. And this time his restaurant was a success, attracting A-listers like Robert De Niro, who offered to go into partnership with him.

Today, Nobu is the owner of more than 40 sushi restaurants across the globe.

And here at "Cook's Country," our recipe for miso black cod is inspired by Nobu's take on the dish.

-Black cod miso, also sometimes called black cod with miso, is a dish that's become synonymous with the Nobu global restaurant empire.

In fact, you can find that dish on almost every single one of their menus.

It's fantastic.

And we're lucky today because Julia's going to show us a version we can make at home.

-I love this dish.

I've eaten it several times at Nobu in New York, and it has a distinctive sort of buttery texture, and the flavor of the fish, which can be on the rich side, is really balanced with this acidic, sort of salty soy glaze.

-Mmm.

-It's good.

So let's talk for a minute about black cod because it's not part of the cod family.

Let's just get that out of the way.

It is a different species altogether.

It's a deep sea fish from the Pacific.

It's caught wild and you're usually going to find it frozen.

It's almost never sold fresh.

And the thing about it is you want to thaw it out yourself.

Also known as slacking out -- That's the term when you thaw frozen fish.

And you want to buy it frozen from your fishmonger if you can, and slowly thaw it in the refrigerator, that'll give you the best texture.

Now, if you can't find black cod, that's okay.

It goes by a couple other names just to be a little more confusing.

Sablefish, butter fish, cold fish.

And there's even more, but if you can't find it, some easy substitutes -- Chilean sea bass, salmon is terrific, or Atlantic char.

-Oh, great, 'cause I've never been able to find it.

It's the kind of thing like you think you're never going to see it.

And then all of a sudden you'll see it everywhere.

It's really becoming quite popular.

-Okay.

-All right, so these are four filets, their skin on.

There are 6 to 8 oz each.

And we're going to marinate it, and the marinade is really where all the flavor is.

And the marinade, not only flavor, but it almost kind of cures the texture of this very dense rich fish.

Starts with miso, we're going to use white miso which has a very mild flavor, sort of weedy.

You could use red miso which is a bit stronger.

So it's a cup of white miso.

We're going to add some sugar -- 2/3 of a cup of sugar, 1/3 of a cup of mirin, sweet floral acidity, and 1/4 cup of sake.

The sake adds a really nice acidic punch, a little bit of soy, 3 tablespoons of soy sauce.

And some toasted sesame oil.

Just a tablespoon.

You want to whisk this together.

Really dissolve that miso in the sugar.

-That's just a flavor bomb.

-Right?

I mean, oh, you can put this on anything.

-Yeah.

Absolutely.

-All right.

so whisking it together, getting rid of all those lumps.

Oh, that looks good.

All right.

Now time to marinate the fish.

Just going to give it a quick pat dry and get rid of any moisture because it's frozen, sometimes it can be a little wet on top.

Into the bag everything goes.

There's really no fancy technique for this.

Just try not to get it all over your shirt.

That's my only rule.

I'm successful about half of the time.

Oh.

All right, thank you.

Do you want to hold the bag or you want to do the pouring?

-Ah, I'm going to hold the bag.

-All right.

-I trust you.

-[ Chuckles ] Oh, thank you very much.

I'll take the bag.

Here's a towel for your hand.

Now, let's just unroll the top of this bag.

Really just want to squeeze out any of the air.

Just helps that marinade really surround the fish.

There we go.

You just want to coat that fish really thoroughly with that marinade and make sure it gets through all the way.

Now, minimum of eight hours.

Maximum of 24.

The longer it sits in here, the more flavorful it gets.

-Lovely.

-And of course we're going to put this in the fridge, I like putting on a plate just to give it a little support.

-Good idea.

-That's it.

Bridget, this cod has been marinating.

It's nicely done.

This is the messy part.

This is kind of -- This is my kind of recipe, right?

You get in there with your hands.

-Girl, every part is the messy part in every recipe with you.

-So you want to leave some of that marinade on.

You don't want to wipe it all off.

So there's no towels.

But your finger is the perfect way to just scrape off all the extra marinade, and leaving just a thin film of it.

-Mm.

-Oh, yeah.

-A little gloss.

-A little gloss.

All right.

All cleaned up.

Ready for this to go in the oven.

We're actually going to broil it.

Nice hot heat, makes a nice crust on the outside with that little bit of a marinade.

Now, notice the setup.

It's a little unusual.

-Sure is.

-So I have a rimmed baking sheet lined with a wire rack top for the piece of foil.

The foil has been sprayed with vegetable oil spray.

This is why -- the rack elevates the fish, so that the sides of the pan don't get in the way, and it browns nice and evenly.

And the foil is there to protect that wire rack because it is a bear to clean when that marinade gets stuck to it after you're done cooking.

it's ready for the broiler.

Now the broiler element and the rack are about eight inches apart.

We're looking for a temperature of 125 degrees.

Takes anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes.

All right, that fish is safely tucked under the broiler, which gives us a few minutes to have a little fun with garnishes.

So I'm going to show you how to make scallion curls.

Have you ever made these before?

-I don't think so.

-Oh, I mean it's fussy, but it's fun.

Especially because it's such a simple recipe.

So what we're going to do is save the scallion whites for another use.

You just want the scallion greens.

We're going to slice it nice and thin.

-I've made ribbon curls for packages.

-[ Laughs ] It's very similar.

You want to cut it nice and thin.

Maybe I can cut these a little thinner.

There you go.

And you want to put them in ice water.

And as they sit in the ice water, it does -- it curls like a ribbon.

Everyone thinks it's a special dish.

All right.

Just thin slices.

Just a few go a long way.

-Uh-huh.

-There we go.

Nice sharp knife.

Pretty important if you want to slice through scallions like this.

All right.

That's pretty good.

Into the ice water they go.

Submerge them in there.

Ah, and now it's fun to watch them just curl up with that cold water.

All right, I'm going to go check on that fish.

Oh, yeah.

This looks perfect.

You can see the other use for that foil is you can fold it up around the edges of the fish if they start to get a little too dark.

-Very smart.

-Multi-use.

-Oh, wow!

And then you get to present it.

You get to do the "voila!"

-Now as I mentioned, we're looking for a temperature of 125 degrees.

Perfect.

-Nice.

-All right, now, one thing I want to point out, you can see there's these pin bones that are now sticking out of the fish.

They're much easier to remove once the fish is cooked.

They really slide right out.

And depending on who you're serving, you might want to remove them before your guests.

It's also really easy to just remove them right on your plate.

-Oh-ho-ho!

-Now you can see the skin really just comes right off and that is fine.

-That came off the foil really nice.

-I know, isn't it gorgeous?

All right, let's look at our fun little garnish.

Look how they just curl right up.

It's nice to have a sweet little garnish on top of your dinner.

-And you made it easy as well.

-All right.

Dry these off here.

Don't you feel like you're dining at Nobu?

-Yes.

-Almost.

That extra bronze looking glaze.

-Mmm.

-That's just gorgeous.

And I have a little bit of pickled ginger, which is nice to serve with it.

Mm-hmm.

I can't wait to dig into this.

-This is five-star already.

I haven't even tucked in.

Gorgeous.

-Went right for the middle.

Mmm.

-It's so buttery.

-Yeah.

I mean, that's one of its names, right?

Butter fish, right.

you can see how it gets it.

It's so rich, but because of that richness, the miso really comes out, and it can stand up to that fish flavor.

A little bit of the toasted sesame.

And then you get the fragrance of the mirin and the sake.

-The crust is insane.

I have to say.

It's deeply colored.

It almost looks like it's gone too far, but it's not.

It's just super, super deeply flavored.

It almost has a cocoay taste to it.

-Mm-hmm -It's beautiful.

-I mean, you can just see how moist that is.

-Well, the texture too is really interesting because, you know, you soaked it for, you said at least eight hours, up to 24 hours.

And it did change the texture just a little bit.

-With a little bit of scallion and a little bit of the pickled ginger.

-Oh, right.

-It's so nice to be able to make this at home, although you definitely should go to Nobu if you have the chance because there, it's fabulous.

-Why not both?

-[ Laughs ] Exactly.

-But you could fool everybody.

Make them think that they were dining at Nobu.

This is gorgeous.

It was so easy to make.

And I love the little garnish, too.

Spectacular.

Five-star.

-Thank you.

Nice.

-If you want to make this stellar dish at home, make a marinade with white miso, mirin, and sake.

Marinate the black cod for at least eight hours, and then broil the cod until it's deeply browned.

So, by way of Nobu and, of course, Julia's famous restaurant, it's miso black cod.

You can get this beautiful recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes, and those are all on our website, cookscountry.com/tv.

It's falling apart right in front of my eyes.

-I know.

-Gorgeous.

-Visit our website where you can sign up for the free "Cook's Country" email newsletter, or even more of the recipes and stories you love from the magazine and the TV show, cookscountry.com/cooks.

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-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

Monument grills offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills to suit every level.

Our mission is to ignite your passion to pursue the art of grilling.

Learn more at monumentgrills.com.