Momofuku Taré (yakitori sauce) 

Taré (holy crap this is delicious)
In my attempt to create Momofuku Ramen from the Momofuku cookbook, I first had to make taré sauce. This sauce involves roasting bones and then simmering them in mirin, sake, and soy sauce. The final product was meaty and delicious. The momofuku recipe calls for roasting chicken backs, I didn’t have any but I did have a duck carcass and a turkey backbone, so that is what I used!

Chop up the bones from 2-3 chicken backs, or use duck parts or turkey parts or whatever poultry bones you have. Extra meat and skin is good, too. Put them in an oven-proof saute pan or pot. Roast in a 400˚ oven for 45 minutes or so. You want the parts well browned, but not black at all. Take your bones out of the oven and put them on the stovetop over medium heat. Splash about ½ cup of sake into the pan and use it to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Once all the brown bits are up, add another ½ cup of sake, 1 cup of mirin, and 2 cups low-sodium soy sauce. Stir this into the pan, kick up the heat, bring this to a boil and then reduce the heat to a slight simmer. Let this cook for an hour. Pick out the bones and strain through some cheesecloth.

Separating Fat
I used some duck parts so I had a bit of extra fat in the sauce that I needed to pour off.

This stuff is salty and amazing. I can’t wait to use it.