Yakitori 焼き鳥 are Japanese skewers made of small pieces of chicken cooked on the grill or fire over coals. These skewers are topped with a delicious and tasty soy sauce. It is also possible to simply season them with salt.
Contents
Recipe Yakitori “negima” ねぎま and its sauce
For cooking your yakitori, here are our preferences in order.
For the recipe you can use all parts of the chicken:
- The thigh
- The top of the thigh
- The liver
- The heart
- The fillets or breast
- The skin of the chicken…
For cooking utensils, the taste really differs depending on your cooking method. Personally we prefer charcoal cooking! You can also cook them on a plancha, in a pan or in the oven. We explain all that below.
Recipe Yakitori “negima” ねぎま and its sauce
Equipment
- Bamboo spike
- Kitchen brush
Ingredients
- 2 chicken legs
- 1 green onion with its stems
- neutral oil (colza, sunflower, olive oil…)
For the yakitori sauce
- 100 ml Japanese shoyu soy sauce
- 100 ml mirin
- 1 tbsp white sugar
Instructions
Preparation of the yakitori sauce
- In a saucepan, over medium heat, pour the soy sauce, mirin and sugar and mix quickly with a whisk.
- Reduce the sauce by half. As soon as you see a brown foam appear, wait 5 minutes, then remove from heat and leave it aside. The sauce will become thick. This yakitori sauce can be kept in the refrigerator.
Preparation of the chicken skewers
- Soak your skewers in water while you prepare the chicken pieces.
- Remove the skin from the chicken legs.
- Then cut the pieces into 2.5cm cubes, about the size of a bite.
- Cut up pieces of green onion stems
- Alternate a piece of chicken and a piece of green onion on your skewer.
Grilling of yakitori
- Grease your support and also your skewers with a brush coated with neutral oil.
- Brown your brochettes well and don't hesitate to add oil so that they are well colored.
- Once the skewers are cooked, brush them with yakitori sauce. Be generous! Your yakitori skewers are ready.
For the accompaniments, we recommend a Japanese beer like in the izakaya, a Japanese cocktail or even edamame!
For the cooking of your yakitori, here are our preferences in order:
1- Coal
First of all, we advise you to cook your yakitori on the barbecue. The taste of charcoal on the yakitori is a delight. The sauce will be put at the end so as not to generate too much smoke. You have either :
- a Japanese table barbecue for 1 to 2 people made of Hida diatomaceous earth with high thermal insulation. This is what we use regularly. We put some weber briquettes in it and it lasts for hours!
- A classic barbecue like the Weber or this one in ceramic called Kamobo which is made in Japan.
For the charcoal, we recommend again the weber briquettes.
2 – On a gas plancha grill
In the second place, the cooking of gas allows to seize the meat well. The plancha allows to cook several yakitori at the same time. We advise you to take a plancha of the brand Le Marquier. We also have this model which is really practical when we have guests.
3 – In the oven
If you don’t want to or can’t use these cooking utensils, you can of course use your oven. Just put your oven on the broil position for 5-6 minutes and then brush the yakitori sauce on top.
Don’t forget to put a plate underneath to catch the juice that runs out. Keep an eye on the cooking process.
4 – In the pan
You can also use a conventional frying pan. You will have to watch the cooking. Then, at the end of cooking, you can add the yakitori sauce on top to brown them.
