Chef John puts a rich, umami-packed spin on comfort food with his Dashi Butter Chicken—a savory, silky-sauced dish that blends Japanese-inspired flavor with classic technique. In this video, he shows how to make a quick dashi broth and turn it into a buttery glaze that clings to tender, pan-seared chicken thighs. It’s comforting, unexpected, and exactly the kind of recipe that turns a weeknight dinner into something worth remembering.
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Dashi Butter Chicken.
00:08That's right, one of my many hobbies is collecting rare and exotic pan sauces.
00:13And this one, inspired by a chicken wing recipe and a pork belly recipe, is my newest prized possession.
00:21And I'm beyond excited to show you just how simple it is to make.
00:24And the first thing we'll do is mix up a little bit of a marinade for our chicken breasts,
00:28which will include some finely minced garlic, plus some finely minced ginger.
00:34And we usually use fresh, but this time I went with pickled ginger, and it was really nice.
00:39And then to those we will add some soy sauce, as well as some sake, which is Japanese rice wine.
00:46We'll also do a touch of mirin, which is a sweet Japanese-style cooking wine.
00:51And by the way, back in the day, you would have had a hunt for some of these ingredients,
00:54but I'm happy to report they're very easy to find at the store these days.
00:59And then we'll finish up with a little touch of sesame oil, a little bit of white sugar,
01:04and of course a few shakes of cayenne.
01:07And that's it, we'll take a fork, or a whisk, or whatever, and we'll give this a quick mix.
01:12And that's it, once mixed, we'll set that aside, and we'll move on to prep our chicken breast,
01:17which is going to be nothing more than giving them a little bit of a pounding,
01:21just to flatten them out a little bit, and make them a little more uniform.
01:25And the easiest way to do that is between two pieces of plastic wrap.
01:29And all we're doing here is pounding the thick end,
01:32until it's about the same thickness as the thinner end.
01:35And once that's happened, we will transfer those into our marinade,
01:38and we'll toss them around a few times to make sure they're coated.
01:41And I love to use a pie dish for this, since it's the perfect size for two breasts,
01:47and ensures all the marinade is going to be touching the meat, or at least very close.
01:52And then before we wrap this up, I think we should take a spoon and baste them over the top,
01:58although this is optional, especially if you're going to toss them a few times while they're marinating.
02:02And then I have some great news.
02:05We only need to let this marinate for about 30 minutes to an hour,
02:08so no waiting overnight this time.
02:10And I ended up popping mine in the fridge for about 45 minutes.
02:15Oh, and if you're thinking about doing a longer marinade, be careful.
02:18Or if you leave it too long, your chicken's going to kind of turn into ham,
02:21which wouldn't be the worst thing.
02:23It's just not what we're going for here.
02:25And what we'll do once we pull those out, is blot those dry with some paper towels.
02:30Oh, and do not discard the marinade.
02:32We're going to use a couple tablespoons in the sauce.
02:34But anyway, once those have been dried off a bit, I'm going to do an optional and probably unnecessary step,
02:41which would be to dust these with some potato starch, or cornstarch, or flour, which would basically work the same.
02:47And the reason I'm doing this is because the marinade we made is pretty much identical to our chicken karaoke marinade.
02:54So I was kind of going for the same thing here.
02:57But since we're topping these with a sauce, we're not going to retain any crispiness.
03:01So while it looked nice, I'm not really sure it's worth the trouble.
03:05And I'll talk more about that later.
03:07But the point is, you don't have to do this dusting.
03:09If this dusting is something you don't want to do, and you can simply cook these as is, straight out of the marinade.
03:16So you'll have to decide.
03:18I mean, you are after all the kobayashi of getting your chicken ready for the dashi.
03:22But either way, once we're ready to cook, we will heat up some oil over medium-high heat.
03:28And once hot, we'll transfer those in with the smooth side down.
03:31And we will sear that first side for about three minutes.
03:34And by the way, once things start sizzling, we can back our heat down to medium so that the outside doesn't get too dark before our inside cooks through.
03:43So that's what I did.
03:45And after about three minutes, I flipped those over.
03:48And as you can see, that potato starch does make for a fairly nice-looking surface.
03:52But again, whether it's worth the extra trouble, I'm still kind of on the fence about.
03:57And what we'll do once flipped is give that second side about three minutes before we flip these over one last time.
04:03Oh, and let me give you a pro tip.
04:06Even though I never film them because they don't look good, you want to get yourself a nice big splash guard that goes over the pan.
04:12And that really does make cleanup so much easier.
04:15But anyway, once both sides have gotten about three minutes, and I've turned it back over to the original side for another minute or two,
04:22we will flip those over and check for doneness.
04:25And these were feeling and looking really good, except for whatever that black thing was.
04:31I think it was fried pickled ginger.
04:34But anyway, once your chicken's cooked through, we'll turn off the heat, and we'll remove those tool plates,
04:39and pop them in a warm oven until we finish our sauce, which is only going to take about four or five minutes.
04:44And for that, we will pour off the oil in the pan, and we'll set our heat to high, and we'll add one cup of chicken broth,
04:53followed by two tablespoons of our reserve marinade, as well as another touch of mirin.
04:58We will also want some seasoned rice vinegar, for a little sweetness and acidity.
05:04Followed by the star of the show, about a teaspoon of instant dashi granules,
05:09which is one of the reasons this sauce is so fast and easy.
05:12And what we'll do is give this a stir, and wait for it to start to boil.
05:17And by the way, if you want to make homemade dashi, it's super easy, and I show you how in our miso soup video.
05:22But the instant granules are so convenient, and produce pretty much an identical sauce.
05:28So that's what I'm going with.
05:31And what we'll do once this is boiling, besides giving it the occasional stir,
05:35is simply let it cook for like three or four minutes, until it reduces by about 75%,
05:40and hopefully resembles something that looks like this.
05:44And as soon as that happens, we have to turn off our heat,
05:47and we'll toss in a couple tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter,
05:50and we will start swirling the pan, and we will keep swirling the pan,
05:55until that butter disappears.
05:56And it's going to thicken things up,
05:59and produce one of the most beautiful, gorgeous, shiny sauces you have ever seen.
06:04I mean, look at that.
06:05You could do your makeup looking in that.
06:08And that's it.
06:08We'll pull that off the stove,
06:10and plate up our chicken,
06:12next to possibly a radish and endive salad,
06:15and then proceed to spoon plenty of that incredible sauce over the top.
06:18And once I was done saucing this,
06:21I garnished with a little sprinkling of furikake,
06:24which is basically sesame seeds and seaweed and a few other things.
06:28Except instead of turning the camera on, I turned it off.
06:31But you've seen me sprinkle plenty of times,
06:34so no big deal.
06:35And instead, you'll have to settle for this shot,
06:37where I'm cleaning a few rogue sesame seeds off the plate.
06:41And that's it.
06:41After taking way too many pictures,
06:43I grabbed a fork and knife,
06:44and went in for the official taste.
06:45And that, my friends,
06:48is just mind-blowingly delicious.
06:51And you're probably thinking,
06:52hey, isn't dashi made from seaweed and dried smoked fish?
06:56How is it possible that's going to be good as a sauce for chicken?
07:00Well, somehow it is.
07:02Since it really does not taste like seaweed and dried fish,
07:05what it actually tastes like is pure umami,
07:08which is a word that's totally overused by chefs on the internet.
07:11All right, mostly me.
07:13And it simply refers to something
07:14that's just super intensely savory,
07:17which is exactly what this is.
07:19It's also a little bit sweet,
07:21and a little bit salty,
07:22and a little bit tangy.
07:24Oh, and as far as the inspirations for this,
07:26the chicken wings I saw that were done with the dashi butter
07:29was on Triple D,
07:31and I think the place was called Three Sons Brewery.
07:33So thank you, son, son, and other son.
07:36Plus, there used to be a dish at Bird and Bottle in Santa Rosa
07:39that was a pork belly finished with a ramen butter.
07:42And I always found that to be incredible,
07:44and I'm getting the same vibes here.
07:47But no matter what you use it on,
07:49dashi butter sauce is my new favorite thing,
07:52and I really do hope you give it a try soon.
07:55So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
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