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Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Japanese potato salad with teriyaki chicken. That's right. This incredible potato salad is usually made with ham, but I decided to use a teriyaki method to turn some chicken into ham, and the results really were amazing. Okay, this is without a doubt the best potato salad you've never had. And to get started, we'll put together our marinade. And that will include some soy sauce, some sake, and some mirin, which is like a sweet Japanese cooking wine. And you'll usually find that right next to the soy sauce and the rice vinegar at the market. And then to turn this teriyaki marinade into something more like a brine, we'll add some brown sugar, some salt, as well as a little bit of smoked paprika. Since
as I mentioned, we're going to use this to turn some chicken thighs into something that has a very similar taste and texture to ham, which by the way Michelle calls teaching pigs to fly. But anyway, once that's mixed up and we transferred our thighs in, we will toss those around until they're nicely coated. And then we'll push and poke them down into the brine as best we can. And yes, if you have to, you could use one big chicken breast, but the thighs really do work much better here for the hammy effect we're going for. But either way, once that's set, we'll go ahead and pop on the lid, and we'll pop it in the fridge overnight. And while it's in there, if you want to give it a toss or two, go ahead.
And yes, we could just do this for a couple hours, but for a ham-like effect, we definitely want to go overnight. And then the next day, or whenever you're going to cook this, we'll place a pan over medium-high heat with a little bit of sesame oil in it. And we'll transfer those chicken thighs in smooth side down. And as soon as these start to cook, a bunch of liquid's going to come out, but that's totally fine, since that will eventually evaporate and start to caramelize. And about 3 or 4 minutes later, our pan's going to look like this. And what we'll do is go ahead and flip those over. And once that's accomplished, we'll pour in our marinade. And by the way, if I was actually going to serve this as teriyaki chicken, we would probably want to brown and
caramelize the surface a little more than this. But because we're going to cube it up and use it in our salad, that's really not going to matter. But anyway, once our marinade's in, we'll wait for that to come to a boil, at which point we can reduce our heat to medium, and we'll let that cook for about 5 or 6 minutes, or until the liquids are reduced by about half, and our chicken is safely cooked through. And once that happens, what we'll do is pull this off the heat, and we'll transfer that into a clean container, and we will pour what's turned into an absolutely gorgeous teriyaki sauce over the top. And that's it. We'll simply let that cool down, and then pop it in the fridge until we need it.
And we can move on to making our Japanese potato salad. Which for me is going to start with some Yukon Gold potatoes that I've peeled and rinsed. And we will cut those in half through the narrow side, which is going to give us the most surface area. And then once halved, we will cut them lengthwise twice into three pieces. And then we'll turn and slice across to hopefully get some very uniform cubes. And I prefer these to be about a half inch to 3/4 of an inch in size. But the most important factor here is no matter what size you end up with that first potato, try to repeat that as close as you can to the rest of your potatoes so these cook nice and evenly. And by the way, some russets would also
be a good choice here. So if you prefer those, feel free. I mean, you are after all the Mark Matsumoto of which potato to go to. And by the way, Mark's an old friend, and I've adapted this recipe from one of his. And once our potatoes are cut, we'll go ahead and transfer those into a saucepan, and we will cover those with some nice cold fresh water, along with of course a little bit of salt, and we will wait for that to come up to a boil and while we do we should have plenty of time to slice our carrot which I'm going to start by cutting in half first. Since for the smaller bottom half we'll just cut that into rounds. And then for the larger section we will very carefully cut that in half lengthwise being sure once we start the
cut our hands are on top of the blade so there's zero chance of slicing our fingers. And I will lay those pieces down on the flat side and slice across the same width which is probably going to be somewhere between an eighth and a quarter inch. All right, I hate to give measurements in 16ths but I think it's three of those. And the reason we want to cut these while our water comes up to a boil is because just as soon as it does we're going to toss the carrots in with the potatoes which have gotten a nice head start. And by the time those potatoes finish cooking and are nice and tender which is probably going to be about 7 or 8 minutes from now our pieces of carrots should be nice and sweet and just barely tender
which texturely is going to be perfect for this salad. But the more important key here is to cook the potatoes perfectly. So make sure you're checking them early and often. And what we want is the tip of a knife to slide in very easily which means our potatoes are going to be nice and tender but we do not want the potatoes collapsing and falling apart. And once we decide they are perfect we'll go ahead and drain those really well and then transfer everything into a mixing bowl where I like to let them cool down until they're just barely warm. So I'm going to let those sit there at least 20 minutes or so and while we're waiting we can go ahead and slice our cucumber which is one of the unique ingredients
featured in a Japanese style potato salad. And I'm going to use a mandolin to get some beautifully thin and uniform slices and we'll shoot for something about an eighth of an inch thick. And as you can see I'm using mini cucumbers also sometimes sold as Persian cucumbers but if you're using bigger ones you can just cut them in half. And then once those are sliced, we have to do a critical step, which is sprinkling these with salt, after which we'll give them a nice toss. And what we'll do is let these sit for about 15 minutes or so, during which time the salt's going to pull out water. Oh, and about every 5 minutes, it's good to give them another mix. And as they start to soften, a little bit of a massage.
And then if we're going to include a little bit of diced onion in our salad, which I am, we will toss that with a little bit of salt as well. And what's so interesting about the salt effect, especially with the cucumbers, is that it will draw water and soften them, and improve the flavor, but they'll still retain a very pleasant crisp texture, and they will not get soft and mushy, so don't worry. And once our 15 minutes is up, what we'll do is rinse the onions and toss those into our salad. And then we'll take our salted cucumbers, and we'll squeeze out as much water as possible, before we add those to our potatoes as well. And I think you'll be shocked at just how much moisture actually comes out. And that's it. Before we dress this,
we'll add our last component, which would normally be diced ham, but not this time. We're going to pull out our chilled teriyaki chicken, and we'll go ahead and cube it up. And then we'll toss maybe like half in the salad, and save the rest for the top. And if you sample a piece now, and I'm definitely going to, it really is surprisingly ham-like. Okay, if something could taste like teriyaki chicken and ham at the same time, this would be it. And even if you don't make the potato salad, I must insist you make this. And that's it. Once our chicken ham is in, we will dress this very simply with some mayonnaise. And yes, I splurged and got the Japanese kind. And then we'll finish with a splash of seasoned rice vinegar,
and we'll go ahead and give this a toss. And by the way, as you stir this together, I like to give it a few pokes here and there, just to smash up some of those smaller pieces of potato, which adds an extra touch of starchiness to the salad. But, if your potatoes went a little bit past perfect, and they're kind of falling apart on their own, you don't need to do that. And by the way, that wouldn't be a problem. All right, there's a lot of versions of this salad that are pretty close to actual mashed potatoes. And while I do enjoy that style once in a while, for this, especially since I was adding the chicken cubes, I decided to try to keep the pieces of potato intact. And when we first mix this, it's going
to be kind of saucy. But, what we're going to do is pop this in the fridge for a few hours, and you'll see things will really tighten up. Of course, I didn't actually do that. I could only wait about 30 minutes, because the light was perfect for final shots. And also, I was starving. But, even just 30 minutes later, you'll see things have tightened up. And what we'll do is give this a final mix, and of course, an official taste, to see if we want to adjust with more salt, or more vinegar, or more mayo. And once we're happy, we'll go ahead and plate or platter that up. And as promised, I went ahead and garnished the top with the rest of the chicken, which I tossed with a little bit of the extra sauce. And then, for a couple final touches, I
did a little sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds, followed by some thinly sliced scallion threads, which is green onion sliced lengthwise super thin, and then soaked in cold water until it curls. And that's it, my Japanese potato salad with teriyaki chicken was ready to enjoy. And that, my friends, as I said in the intro, is probably the best potato salad you've never had. And while this would be fantastic with the traditional ham, I thought the teriyaki chicken that we sort of turned into ham works so well, and really paired perfectly with all these other ingredients. And I know cucumber does sound kind of weird in a potato salad, but trust me, it really does work, as long as you don't skip the salting and squeezing step.
Oh, and then I probably should mention this, but I'm going to anyway. All right, a lot of recipes call for adding corn to this, which personally, I think sounds terrible. All right, generally I want my potato salad to be kind of soft and comforting, and I just feel like those kernels of corn would be too distracting. But, no matter what you add to yours, this Japanese potato salad will be a star at your next cookout or barbecue, which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy.
