Passing on the Gentlemanly Arts

Some may argue with me, but to me cooking counts as a pretty gentlemanly skill. Matt Moore of "Have Her Over for Dinner" has a blog and book devoted entirely to just that idea. Plus, I think some guys like Alton Brown, Emeril, Bobby Flay, and Anthony Bourdain would agree with me. I mean, have you ever seen Jacques Pepin cut something - anything - up? Exactly.

In our house, Matt (my Matt, not the one from the blog) does most of the cooking. I'll make a dinner when I have to, but mostly I'm only the family baker. Matt's just better at cooking, and likes doing it. Even as a teenager he cooked me dinner for a special date. It must have worked because look at us now, married for almost 6 years.

Tonight our 5-year-old son Benjamin helped to cook dinner. He proudly made teriyaki sauce with only some minimal measuring help (and stovetop supervision). Now he's asking that I take him to New York to cook with Martha Stewart.

If even the littest gentleman can make teriyaki sauce, so can you. And then you can wow a lady of your own and eventually have your own son to teach to cook.

Teriyaki Sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (or fresh minced ginger if you have it, but double the amount)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or, again, fresh minced if you have it, but double the amount)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water with 1 Tablespoon corn starch mixed in

These ingredients are pretty easy to gather. We used Datu Puti soy sauce because it's what we have on hand (thanks Filipino coworkers!), but any kind would work. Mirin is available in the regular grocery store in the "ethnic foods" section. It's a sweetened, low alcohol sake used in Japanese cooking.

To make the sauce, mix the soy sauce, mirin, ginger, garlic, and brown sugar in a saucepan and heat them to a low boil. When the mix begins to boil add the water and corn starch mix and stir and heat until it gets slightly thicker and bubbly. Remove from the heat and let it cool - it will get thicker as it cools.
 
 Simple, right?

Now go to town putting teriyaki sauce on things. We just had it on some simple rice and steamed veggies. Sorry, no chopsticks.

I highly recommend you check out Have Her Over for Dinner for other simple, but meatier, gentleman-approved recipes.

-Nicole