Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Teriyaki is a soy sauce based Japanese sauce used to glaze meats and fish before and during cooking. I love the sauce name, because I once had an acquaintance named Terry, who loved to talk, giving me the opening to dub him, "Terry Yackey." Hahaha! (RING! RING!) Me- "Hello." Voice on the telephone- "Hey Randy! It's Terry Yackey!" Me-"I'm going to be busy." Terry Yackey-"How long?"
Me-"Until I die."    

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup sweet mirin (sweet rice wine) * 
1 1/2  teaspoons fresh ginger, minced  
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
5 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
1 to 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds (toast them a minute or 2 in a dry pan; that is, NO oil)
(Optional) 1 or 2 teaspoons of dark sesame oil (it adds great flavor)

Mix all but cornstarch, 1/4 cup of water, sesame oil and sesame seeds, in a sauce pan and heat over medium low heat, simmer for 4 to 5 minutes. Mix cornstarch and cold water in a cup and stir to make sure cornstarch is combined. Add to the sauce in pan and stir very well. Heat and stir until sauce thickens to desired thickness, add toasted sesame seeds, and sesame oil, if using, and stir well.

* Available in Asian markets, or in the Asian section of many supermarkets. 

 I put some of the teriyaki sauce on a white plate so it would show well. You can see the sesame seeds and maybe some bits of garlic or ginger.

WORD HISTORY:
Sesame-This word is for a plant that provides seeds used to obtain their oil, and the dried seeds are used to coat bread or rolls or as ingredients in some recipes. The word's origin is very likely the Semitic language family centered in the Middle East region. The most common modern Semitic languages are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew and Tigrinya,^ but in ancient times it included Phoenician and Akkadian (spoken by the Babylonians). Phoenician was also spoken in North Africa by the Carthaginians, a people who had much contact with the Romans and Greeks. Ancient Greek borrowed the word, as "sesamon," from one of these Semitic languages, and then Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "sisamum." This gave French "sisame," and this was borrowed by English in the early 1400s, although its more general acceptance and usage in English did not occur until circa 1800, when the English translation of the Arabian Nights' story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" became popular, along with the magic words, "Open sesame!" 

^ Arabic and Hebrew are commonly known in much of Europe and North America, but Amharic is spoken in a large part of Ethiopia. Tigrinya is also spoken in parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea, another East African nation.