Tea-Infused Teriyaki Sauce

Tea-Infused Teriyaki Chicken

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November 2011 Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

Total time: 1 hour, plus optional marinade time

2 bags Stash’s Licorice Spiced Tea
2 cups boiling hot water
6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup fresh ginger root
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp peanut oil or vegetable oil

Steep tea in hot water for 3-5 minutes. Remove and squeeze tea bags, discard.

In a food processor or blender, combine tea and remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. ***

Boil sauce in a large pan on medium-high for 20-30 minutes until reduced.

Stash's Licorice Spice Tea

*** At this point, you could add 4 lovely Szechuan peppers and 1 pound of chicken to marinate in the refrigerator. I marinated my chicken, then boiled the whole lot down, added some carrots, and served it on steamed rice.

As it is, it’s just a sweet teriyaki sauce; it’s not even very salty. If you want sweet & salty, add more soy sauce. If you want sweet & spicy (which worked great for me), add some peppers; four Szechuan peppers didn’t make it very hot to me, but you might find it warm enough.