Yakitori

Variations

• Shio (salt) yakitori: Just salt instead of tare, for a clean taste.
• Negima: The classic chicken-and-scallion combo (this recipe).
• Tsukune: Minced chicken meatballs on skewers.
• Other cuts: Chicken skin, liver, or cartilage.

Tips

• Soak the skewers 30 minutes so they don't burn on the grill.
• Chicken thigh stays the juiciest and most tender.
• Baste the tare in several coats to layer up shine and flavor.
• Finish over high heat for a bit of smoky char.
• Why several thin coats and not one thick one. Tare is soy, mirin, sake and sugar, and sugar starts burning around 150°C while the surface of a charcoal grill is far hotter (grilling). One heavy coat blackens before the chicken is cooked. Each thin coat dries and sets before the next goes on, and the lacquer is built rather than applied. Dango and Teriyaki Chicken are brushed on the same rule; Dengaku is the opposite case, a thick paste spread once and given thirty to sixty seconds.
• Shio and tare are two different dishes, not two seasonings. With no sugar on the surface a salted skewer can take full heat from the start and chase colour freely, which is the split Yakiniku sets out. Salt goes on just before the skewer hits the grate.
• A shop's tare is a pot that is topped up, not a sauce that is made. Old counters work from a tare that has been replenished for decades — every skewer dipped in it goes straight onto the fire, and the pot is reduced regularly, which is what keeps it. At home you are making a small batch, so brush rather than dip and keep any that touched raw chicken out of the serving bowl.
• Thigh, and not only for flavour. Its fat and connective tissue give a much wider doneness window than breast, which matters when the cook is a hot grate and thirty seconds (cooking meat). The same logic sends Anticuchos to a cut with no margin at all and two minutes a side.
• Two skewers side by side stop the pieces spinning when you turn them — the same practical rule as Kabab Koobideh's flat blade.