Torihamu - ever made it?

[Coltrain]

Saw this on a couple other forums here and here. Has anyone here made this before? It looks pretty tasty. I may have to try it this weekend if time allows...

 

[deguerre]

That does sound good. I'd try it with boneless skinless thighs too. Thanks for the link!

 

[landarc]

Interesting, it is chicken ham, never heard of this before. Of course, I have no compunction about eating ham ham and not chicken ham. It is similar in function and process to the teriyaki chicken breast roast that my family has made for a long time.

We cure chicken thigh or breast meat, boneless, in a traditional teriyaki marinade for 24 to 48 hours. This pulls moisture out of the meat like a brine and causes the chicken to cure and take on the soy/sugar/salt flavor components and gives the meat a dark red appearance. When smoked properly, it takes on a deep pink color and forms a skin on the surface. It is delicious and done correctly, moist, salty, sweet very much like a ham texture.

 

[Mark]

I've brined whole chickens in Morton TenderQuick before. Turned out tasting like ham. Go figure.

 

[Chef Jim]

looked like chicken fried rice to me, I like it

 

[southernsmoker]

Looks good will have to try it..thanks

 

[rookiedad]

i was thinking of curing a turkey breast and trying to make turkey bacon. anyone ever try this?

 

[boatnut]

I wanna try this. when googling different recipes though , there seems to be some discrepancy in the amount of sweetener to use. Some sites (http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/torihamu-homemade-chicken-ham) say 1 tablespoon of honey (or sugar/ molasses etc) and others say , 1 tablespoon EACH of white sugar, brown sugar and molasses. (http://www.theqjoint.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6344&highlight=torihamu)

any clarifications on this recipe?

 

[landarc]

I can offer this, various areas of Japan have very different tastes for the same dish. My family comes from two different areas of Japan, Hiroshima (far south) and Tokyo (roughly middle of main island) and the sense of what is properly sweetened varies. The Hiroshima side goes much more salty/sour as opposed to Tokyo salty/sweet, so I would say a lot goes to what you prefer.

 

[bigabyte]

That does look and sound tasty. I will have to give it a try.

 

[feltrider99]

I have had it several times in Japan and really like it. It doesn't taste much like chicken (in fact I thought I was eating ham the first time).

 

[Carbon]

Interesting. This must be something new as I've never heard of torihamu during the years I lived in Japan.

 

[bluetang]

Looks and sounds good, something to try for sure, thighs for me too.

 

[landarc]

Torihamu (chicken ham) is recent in terms of it's becoming common place in the past 8 years or so. I am of the belief that is is very similar to the marinaded chicken that the American of Japanese Ancestry have been doing here for many decades.

The church I grew up in used to do an annual chicken feed, which we referred to as a Teriyaki chicken dinner sale. Technically, it was not teriyaki as in traditional terms that is actually a glaze process, where as we marinaded the chicken in the sauce which gave it a cured quality which modified both the texture and flavor of the chicken. The picture of the torihamu that I have been able to find looks a lot like the chicken we make over here, it seems to me it is a reverse import to Japan of a technique that was modified in America to suite our tastes here.