Sautéed Chicken with Salty Shallot (Scallion) Sauce

This is one of the easiest chicken recipes. Salty Shallot Sauce with sesame oil flavour goes so well with Sautéed Chicken pieces. Sautéed Chicken with Salty Shallot Sauce can be a main dish or served as nibbles with drinks.

This is a special Sautéed Chicken as the meat is from chicken necks. Today’s dish is sometimes served at izakaya (Japanese style taverns) using chicken neck meat topped with salt and sesame oil flavoured shallot/scallion sauce.

So, I tried to copy the way izakaya serve this dish. But of course, you can use chicken thigh fillet or breast fillet instead of neck meat.

About Chicken Neck Meat

The chicken neck meat is called ‘seseri’ (せせり) in Japan. The name came from the way the meat is scraped off the neck bone. The meat is removed off the neck bone by moving a knife little by little. This action is similar to the verb ‘seseru’ (せせる) in Japanese and ‘seseri’ is the noun form of this word.

Chicken neck meat is considered to be a valuable meat in Japan due to the fact that you can get only a small amount of meat from each chicken. It also has good flavour with an adequate amount of fat (=juicy) because the neck is the body part of the chicken that moves a lot.

I have never seen chicken neck meat sold in Australia so, I decided to take meat off chicken neck bones. Chicken neck bones are very cheap here. It is often used for soup stock.  I bought 1kg/2.2lb of neck bones and got 300g/0.7lb of meat out of them – not bad at all from cost perspective.

Some pieces of chicken neck meat can be quite long, more than 10cm/4” long. But when cooked, they shrink – no need to cut it short.

How to Remove Meat off Chicken Neck

It takes a bit of time to get the meat off each neck bone, but I must say it is worth it. Here is the step-by-step photo of removing meat from the chicken neck. You can get meat off two sides of a neck.

1. The chicken neck bone is slightly bent and it is shaped like an arch. Place the bone on a cutting board facing the outside of the arch down.
2. Starting from the right end (for a right hander) of the neck bone, place the knife between the meat and the neck bone.
3. Slide the knife along the bone little by little to remove the meat off the bone.
4. Continue cutting to the other end of the neck.
5. At the end of the neck, it is easier to roll the neck bone 90 degrees to cut off the meat.
6. A strip of meat removed from one side of the chicken neck.
7. Rotate the neck bone 180 degrees to face the other side of the neck up. Cut the meat off the bone in the same way.
8. Two strips of meat off one neck bone.
9. Chicken meat removed from 1kg/2.2lb of chicken neck bones.

It is OK if you can’t remove the neck meat in one long piece. I often ended up with 2-3 short pieces, as you can see in the photo of sautéing the meat in a frying pan.

Salty Shallot (Scallion) Sauce

This is a simple but very tasty sauce. In Japan, this kind of salty flavoursome sauce is called ‘shiodare’ (塩だれ). The word ‘shio’ (塩) means salt and ‘dare’ is the same as ‘tare’ (the sound changes when appended to a word) which means sauce. So, today’s dish is called ‘shiodare chicken’ (塩ダレチキン) in Japan.

It is a bit salty, so you only need a small amount of sauce over the sautéed chicken.

My sauce consists of chopped shallots, ginger, dashi stock, sake, mirin, salt and sesame oil. If you can’t consume sake, you can substitute it with water.

The sauce ingredients, excluding ginger, shallots and sesame oil, are cooked in the pan that was used to sauté the chicken. This ensures you don’t miss the good flavour from the meat. When the sauce is condensed, add remaining ingredients and it is ready to pour over the cooked meat.

Some salty shallot sauce recipes add garlic but I did not use it in my recipe. If you love garlic flavour, you can add grated or finely chopped garlic to the sauce.

The sauce can go very well with sautéed pork as well.

Today’s dish can be served in a small quantity as an appetiser as per the photo above, or in a large quantity as a main. Because of the salty flavour, it goes very well with rice.

Yumiko

PS: I added a new section ‘MEAL IDEAS’ below the recipe card. It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and the new recipe in this post that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you!

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Sautéed Chicken with Shallot (Scallion) Sauce

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Total Time

10 mins

 

This is one of the easiest chicken recipes. Salty Shallot Sauce with sesame oil flavour goes so well with Sautéed Chicken pieces. Sautéed Chicken with Salty Shallot Sauce can be a main dish or served as nibbles with drinks.

Prep Time does not include the time to get meat off chicken neck bones.

Recipe Type: Appetizer, Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: sautéed chciken, scallion sauce, shallot sauce

Serves: 2 as main

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 300g/0.7lb chicken neck meat (note 1)
• ½ tbsp oil

Shallot (Scallion) Sauce

• 1 tbsp sake
• 1 tsp mirin
• ½ tsp dashi seasoning/granular dashi stock (note 2)
• 1 tbsp water (note 2)
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tbsp sesame oil
• ¼ tsp grated ginger
• ½ - ⅔ cup finely chopped shallots/scallions

Instructions

1. Add oil to a frying pan and heat over medium high heat.
2. Add the meat to the pan and sauté for about 1-2 minutes (note 3) until both sides are slightly browned. Transfer to a serving plate.

3. Add the Shallot Sauce ingredients (excluding sesame oil, ginger and shallots) to the frying pan and bring it to a boil.

4. When the sauce is condensed to about half, add ginger and shallots, then sesame oil. Mix well and turn the heat off.

5. Pour the sauce over the meat and serve.

Recipe Notes

1. I could not find chicken neck meat sold at the chicken shop nearby, so I bought 1kg/2.2lb of chicken neck bones and got 325g/7.2lb neck meat out of it. Please see the step-by-step photos in my post and see how I removed some meat off a chicken neck.

Alternatively, you could use chicken thigh fillet cut into short thin strips. Chicken breast fillet is OK too, but it won’t be as juicy as thigh fillet and you might need a bit more oil to cook the meat.

2. Please refer to Home Style Japanese Dashi Stock for a sample granular dashi powder.

Instead of dashi powder, you can use chicken stock powder.

3. If you are using chicken thigh or breast fillets, you might need to cook a bit longer depending on the size of the meat.

4. Nutrition per serving as a main.

serving: 231g calories: 435kcal fat: 30g (46%) saturated fat: 7.3g (37%) trans fat: 0g polyunsaturated fat: 7g monounsaturated fat: 13g cholesterol: 129mg (43%) sodium: 694mg (29%) potassium: 478mg (14%) carbohydrates: 11g (4%) dietary fibre: 1.7g (7%) sugar: 5.3g protein: 27g vitamin a: 25% vitamin c: 13% calcium: 2.8% iron: 15%