CHICKEN THIGH YAKITORI

Yakitori comes from Japan and literally means ‘grilled chicken’, referring to bite sized pieces of chicken grilled over charcoal and brushed or seasoned with flavour packed sauces. It’s a much loved staple of Japanese street food and izakaya dining, with different cuts and parts of the chicken each getting their moment on the grill. Popular varieties include…

  • negima, chicken thigh with spring onion (this recipe)

  • tsukune, juicy chicken meatballs

  • bonjiri, chicken tail

  • sunagimo, or chicken gizzard.

Yakitori can be seasoned simply with salt (shio) or finished with tare like I have here, which is a glossy, savoury sweet sauce made with ingredients such as soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar.

If you’re making yakitori at home for the first time, chicken thigh is the place to start. It’s wonderfully forgiving, staying juicy and tender even when it gets a little extra time on the grill, while its slightly higher fat content adds plenty of flavour and helps create those delicious caramelised, charred edges. Cut it into bite sized pieces, thread it onto skewers and brush with tare as it cooks, building up those sticky layers of sauce as you go. You don’t need a fancy setup either, a barbecue, grill or just a hot pan like I have done can do the job nicely.

CHICKEN THIGH YAKITORI

〰️

CHICKEN THIGH YAKITORI 〰️

Time: 40 minutes

Serves: 8-10 skewers

10 medium small skewers

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup cooking sake

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 table spoon mirin

1/2 table spoon garlic powder

1 brunch spring onion

500gm boneless chicken thigh

Cooking oil

Togarashi

Submerge skewers in cold water.

In a small pot add in soy sauce, sake, brown sugar, mirin and garlic powder and bring to a steam over low medium heat. Allow to gently simmer for 5 minutes or until reduced by half. Take off heat and pop to the side.

Prep spring onion by washing thoroughly and then cutting the white into light green parts in to half a thumb in length. Repeat this process until you have as many pieces of spring onion cut.

Prep the the chicken thigh by cutting into even small squares. Then take the skewers out of the water and place on piece of chicken then spring onion and repeat this process so each skewer has four chicken pieces and three spring onion pieces separating the chicken. Make sure to keep the chicken flat on the skewer and not folded on itself so it cooks through on the pan.

Place large pan on medium heat and allow to heat up, add a drizzle of oil before adding half the skewers. Brush the sauce on top each skewer and allow to cook for 4 minutes. If you want a solid burn flavour which I recommend, flame the skewers with a blow torch until charred. Flip the sewers and repeat the process of brush and torch. Continue cooking and brushing with the sauce until chicken is cooked through, depending on cuts and how thin, this could be 8-12 minutes all up. Take off pan and repeat process with second batch of skewers. 

Brush all that pan sauce over the skewers to finish before seasoning with lots of togarashi for kick.