One of my favorite restaurants is Benihana. The food is absolutely delicious and it’s entertaining because they cook your meal right at your table. However, it’s pretty expensive and they seat you with other people (strangers suck). So, one time a while back I decided to pay attention to how they made their yummy food and see if I could make it on my own. I succeeded, and it has long since been one of our favorite homemade meals (we call it “Benihana’s” as in “We should get the stuff for Benihana’s and make it tonight! Yaaaaay!”) Well, I thought I’d type up the recipe and let y’all experience the yummiest of homemade meals:
1 medium white onion
2 zucchini
1 container of fresh sliced mushrooms
1-1.5 lbs chicken breast
Kikkoman soy sauce (since this is the main seasoning, the quality of the sauce will probably make or break the meal)
roasted sesame seeds
vegetable oil
rice (it’s nice, but it’s just a grain)
First off, you probably want some rice to go along with the meal, so cook as much as you see fit (I think we do 1 cup of uncooked rice).
Cut onion into 1”-2” strips, cut zucchini (we cut them down the middle lengthwise and then slice the halves, I think Benihana’s cuts them into spears and then slices?). Cut the chicken breast into 1.5” cubes (kitchen scissors work great).
Heat some oil in a frying pan for the chicken. Add chicken to oil and pour some soy sauce and sesame seeds over chicken (no exact measurements, I just play it by... tongue? But, I’m pretty liberal with the sauce and I add more as the chicken cooks).
Once the chicken is fully cooked, you can start on the veggies. You’re going to need a pretty big pan (we’ve got a wok style frying pan that works well), add oil to it and heat. Add all of the cut veggies to the pan, douse with soy sauce and sesame seeds, I also add some water (probably less than 1/2 cup) to help steam the veggies and it also makes more sauce. You want the vegetables to be cooked through but still semi-firm (you don’t want to overcook the zucchini or it turns to mush, and you don’t want to undercook the onions or they have that yucky raw onion taste). Add chicken (we dump the contents of the chicken fry pan in, the drippings add flavor!) Stir all up, cook for maybe a minute longer and then you’re done!
The fact that soy sauce is the only spice might seem a little weird, but the flavor from the cooking vegetables and chicken join with it to make an INCREDIBLE flavor! BTW, this will make a ton of food. Kara and I gorge ourselves with it and then we usually still have two lunch servings left over.
Let me know if any of you make this, and how it turned out for you!
