Yakitori de le Canard 鴨ささみで焼き鳥

Last time we had duck tenders as a cutlet, we said we will make Yakitori using the duck tenders (a.k.a. “Yakitori de le canard” 鴨焼き鳥). Finally we managed to do it. I thought about how to prepare it and decided to marinate it and then cook it in the toaster oven. Since it is duck, and Japanese generally think “kamo” or duck goes well with “negi” or onion more precisely Japanese “tokyo” scallion I also served grilled onion. (digression alert *). Since we recently got some really good green beans (which doesn’t happen all that  often), I also added blanched green beans on the side. The combination worked well and “Yakitori de le canard” was a great success (Picture #1).

* The Japanese expression is “鴨がネギを背負ってくる” meaning “duck flies in with onion on its back”. This expression is used when something fortuitous happens in your favor with little or no effort on your part. Or (if you are a conman) it refers to the perfect victim coming to you with money outstretched in their hand.

Ingredients (2 small serving of 4 duck tenders per serving)
8 Duck tenders
One medium onion cut into small wedges
2 tbs Ponzu soy sauce (from the bottle or equal mixture of citrus juice and soy sauce)
2 tbs sake

Directions:
Mix the sake and ponzu in a ziploc bag, place the duck tenders inside and remove as much air as possible and let it marinate overnight in the refridgerator.
Drain the marinade and pat the surface of the tenders dry
Skewer the tenders using a bamboo skewer (picture #2)
Skewer the onion wedges (picture #2)

Line the toaster oven tray with an aluminum sheet. Place the tenders and onion on a metal grate over the sheet and broil the duck tenders and onion 5-7 minutes per-side turning once until done (picture #3).

This was a good “yakitori”. The marinade (sake and ponzu) made the duck meat very tender and flavorful. I may have over cooked it a bit and the meat was lightly dry. the sweet onion went well with the duck. Next time, I can skip the skewering and  cook it in a frying pan.

Chicken breast wrapped in perilla 鶏胸肉の青じそ巻き

This is inspired by a recipe in one of the food blogs I follow. I have previously posted yakitori 焼き鳥 dishes made with a combination of chicken meat, perilla and "umeboshi" 梅干し salted plum paste (this is a classic combination). One such dish used chicken tenderloin  another used chicken made into a roll with shiso and umeboshi paste, cut into medallions and skewered. This is the same combination of flavors with some different twists.   I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, pound the pieces to break down the fibers, and marinate them before making the skewers as the recipe suggested. This preparation really made the chicken breast much more moist and tender. (My wife asked if this was sous vide chicken breast). I served the pieces un-skewered and instead of adding plum paste in the marinade as suggested in the recipe I put it on the top which has a more direct impact.

Ingredients (For the three skewers seen here):
One half of boneless and skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces, pounded with a meat mallet to break down the fibers.
Perilla leaves (We have a forest of perilla in our herb garden, 4 feet tall!)
Light olive oil for cooking.

For marinade
2 tbs sake
1tbs light colored soy sauce
1 tsp potato starch (katakuri-ko)

Directions:
I placed the chicken in a Ziplock bag with the marinade ingredients. I kneaded the bag to mix the meat and the marinade. I removed the air as much as I could before closing the bag. I refrigerated it for a few hours.
I cut the perilla leaves to the width of the meat and long enough that it wrapped the meat all the way around (some of our perilla leaves were quite large and had to cut them into several pieces). I wrapped the chicken pieces and put them on a skewer. (Althouhg I cooked the chicken in a frying pan rather than over charcoal, it was much easier to flip the skewers and keep the perilla leaves on the meat) (#1).
I added a small amount of light olive oil to a non-stick frying pan on low flame (#2), Put on the lid and cooked it for several minutes and then turned them over (#3). I used an instant thermometer to make sure it read 165F and the chicken was done before taking the skewers off the heat.  (#4).

I was going to use a tube of salted plum paste but it was near-empty and looked old. So, I made plum sauce or "Bainiku" 梅肉 sauce from "umeboshi" 梅干し salted plums (my mother's last batch sent to us a few years ago) (#5). I removed the meat from the stones and chopped it finely and put it in a Japanese "suribachi" すり鉢 mortar (#6). I gradually added mirin みりん until the ground plum became a thick saucy consistency. I smeared the sauce over the chicken (the first picture).

Although this is a variation of a "golden" combination of chicken meat, perilla, and salted plum sauce, this variation was really good because of the tender and moist texture of the chicken.

Pork belly wrapped fig and asparagus イチジクとアスパラのバラ肉巻き

It was another rather nice day in Washington DC and we decided to grill outside. I was sent by-she-who-must-be-obeyed to the near-by Whole food market to get fresh whole fish. I got fish (trout, nothing else looked great). While there I could not resist buying sliced pork belly or "Bara-niku" バラ肉 which is a very common cut in Japan but we can get it only at this store around here. It is essentially "raw" (as in not smoked or cured) bacon meat. Since we were grilling our trout on a charcoal fire, I decided to make skewers using the pork belly. I was not thinking of any specific recipe but, since I also got mission figs at the same store, I decided to wrap the figs with pork belly. I first cut the figs into quarters and then wrapped them and skewered them for grilling.

I also had pencil asparagus already blanched and ready to go, I wrapped them in pork belly as well (below picture). I seasoned it salt and pepper before grilling.

I am sure this is not good for you but grilled pork belly with crispy edges and sweet figs inside (grilling enhanced the sweetness of the fig) cannot go wrong. My wife asked me to grill the pieces more after fig/pork belly was removed from the skewers to make all the surfaces crispy even the ones between the pieces on the skewer.

The asparagus joined in later.

We enjoyed this delectable pork belly as a starter with a red wine.  We then started on our trout. This time, I simply salted them (after scaling).

We really enjoyed the simply prepared trout. We did not need any thing else with the fish. Salt and charcoal fire really make the fish taste good.

As an ending dish, I made our usual grilled rice balls but this time, I made sweet miso sauce (miso, sugar, mirin) and brushed it on towards the end of the cooking (below).

I happened to make beer pickles the prior weekend and served it (daikon, carrot, and cucumber) on the side.

The daikon was the same extremely "hot" one we tasted as grated daikon and was very spicy even as pickles. I sort of liked it but my wife thought her stomach could not take it.

Edible chrysanthemum roll 春菊ロールと煮浸し

The other day, I saw fresh edible chrysanthemum or "shungiku" 春菊 at the Japanese grocery store. Since this is my wife's favorite Japanese vegetable and only sporadically appears in the grocery store, I got it. Although the most classic way to enjoy shungiku is in sukiyaki すき焼き, we were not having sukiyaki this time. So, I made a small appetizer with shungiku and served it with a skewer of chicken tenderloin in yakitori style with pickled plum 梅肉 and perilla 大葉 as a starter one evening.



I decided to make it a bit interesting and made a roll wrapped with thin omelet and a nori sheet.



In addition, I made the thick stem part into "Oshitashi" おひたし or "Nibitashi" 煮浸し garnished with bonito flakes.



I should have taken the pictures while I was making the roll but I did not.

Preparation of shungiku:
I washed and removed any wilted leaves and cut off the very end of the stems. I removed the leaves with thin stalks and separated the thick stems.

Cooking:
In a large pot, I cooked the thick stems first in salted boiling water for several minutes until cooked but still crunchy in the center. I scooped them up with a large slotted spoon and let them cool on the plate until I could handle them. I cut them into 2 inch logs.

I cooked the remaining shungiku for less than 1 minute, drained, and let cool on a paper towel lined plate.

Seasoning:
Thick stems (3rd picture):
I immediately soaked them in warm seasoned broth (dashi broth, soy sauce and mirin). Once it came to room temperature, I placed it in the refrigerator. I served it garnished with dried bonito flakes.

Leaves (1st and 2nd pictures):
After I squeezed out the excess moisture, I dressed them in karashi shouyu からし醤油 (Japanese hot mustard, sugar and soy sauce). It could be served as is (after cut into a reasonable size) but I made a roll with thin omelet and then dried nori sheet using a bamboo mat. I let it sit wrapped in plastic wrap for few minutes or until the nori sheet adhered to itself. I cut it in 1 inch cylinders.

Shungiku has a very unique nice flavors. Using two different ways of preparing, both were quite good as small starter dish for sake.

Yakitori, two kinds 焼き鳥２種類、レバたれ、笹身のシソ梅肉

I started this blog with “Yakitori” posts 3 years ago. I also posted about our surrogate “Izakaya” “Tako Grill”.  Last year, to our surprise, Chef Kudo went back to Japan for good and opened up his restaurant “タコグリルTako Grill” in the small town he originally came from called “Kuroishi” 黒石 in Aomori prefecture 青森県. Now Mr. Terry Segawa 瀬川哲紀 who mostly took care of the business side of Tako Grill is more involved in the kitchen. He added quite nice Izakaya type snacks to the menu (actually, he now has a special Izakaya menu). When Terry is behind counter, he often offers something “off the menu”. These dishes are different and quite nice; one evening it was Yakitori (chicken liver and hearts). My wife really likes chicken liver Yakitori, which I have not made for some time. This prompted me to make these small yakitori skewers on weekend.
When I barbecue whole chickens, I usually discard the neck, gizzards and liver which are packaged in paper and tucked inside the cavity. (These are usually meant for making the American classic gravy-with-giblets). This time, I used the liver to make this small Yakitori while we are waiting for the whole chickens to finish cooking.

Since the Webber grill was otherwise occupied with the whole chickens and the mosquitos were still around making me reluctant to stand around outside tending the grill, I cooked these Yakitori in the toaster oven in “Hi-broil”.

Chicken liver: I removed attached fat, vessels etc and soaked them in sake for 20-30 minutes. I used a flat metal skewer. From two whole chickens, there was enough liver to make two small skewers (picture below).

Sauce: I made quick “tare” たれ or dipping sauce. It is a mixture of sake (1 tbs) mirin (1 tbs), sugar (2 tsp) and soy sauce (1 tbs). I first heated the sake and mirin mixture to boil, then dissolved sugar and added soy sauce. I then made a potato starch slurry (katakuriko 片栗粉 or potato starch plus sake). I streamed it in until the sauce was slightly thickened.

Chicken tenderloins: This is a variation of shiso and salted plum roll 梅しそ巻き which I previously posted. Instead of making it into a roll, I butterflied the chcken tenderloins, lined it with 1 or 2 leaves of perilla and smeared bainiku 梅肉 (I removed the meat of umeboshi 梅干 plum and minced it into paste with a small amount of mirin to make it a paste consistency). After closing the butterflied portions, I used a sawing motion to thread the skewer (see below).

I cooked the skewers on Hi-broil in the toaster oven (with the upper heating elements about 1 inch from the skewers) turning once or twice for 10-15 minutes. For the liver,  I coated the surface of the cooked liver with the dipping sauce and broiled it for one more minute turning once. I put on one more coat of “tare” sauce and sprinkled “sansho” 山椒 or powdered Szechwan pepper corn on the liver.

This was a perfect appetizer to eat while we waited for the chicken to cook. Sometimes the liver included in the packet found in the cavity of a whole chicken is not fresh and is all broken up, but I should check it before discarding. This was perfectly good chicken liver.

Shio-koji pork skewers 塩麹豚肉の串焼き

With a success of shio-koji marinated chicken thighs, I made these "Yakitori"-style (or "Muroran" style) pork skewers. One is shio-koji marinated and the other, sweet miso marinated (the one more blackened is shio-koji marinated in the picture below).


Pork: These are the trimmings from two pork tenderloins. I cut them in bite size chunks.

Marinades: One is shio-koji and the other sweet miso (white miso 2 tbs, sugar 1 tsp and mirin 2 tbs). I put enough marinade to coat the meat in Ziploc bags, massaged it and removed as much air as possible and sealed (left in the picture below, the brown one is miso marinated and the white one shio-koji marinated). I let it marinade at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Skewers: I first soaked bamboo skewers in warm water while the meat was marinating. I alternated pieces of meat with sweet onion and made 4 skewers (left in the picture below)


Cooking: Since previously, I badly burned the chicken thighs, I decided to cook these skewers in the oven first. I preheated my toaster oven to 350F (in the convection mode) and baked the skewers for 15 minutes. Then, I switched to the hi-broil mode and moved up the grate so that the skewers were one inch below the broiling elements. After 2-3 minutes when the one side started charring, I turned them over and broiled for 2 minutes.

I served this over the bed of couscous. Again we were impressed with the tenderizing effect of shio-koji despite the rather brief marinating. The shio-koji version was tender, moist and succulent. The sweet miso version had a nice sweet nutty flavor but was considerably more chewy.

Baked cornmeal drumett "tulip" 手羽元チュウリップのコーンミールオーブン焼き

I bought chicken wings over the weekend but we did not use them. I marinated them in sake and kept them in the refrigerator so that they would stay fresh for several more days. Since it was not feasible to grill them over a charcoal fire on a weeknight - not to mention that it is getting too cold and dark to barbecue after we get home, I baked them in the oven to make a Yakitori style dish. I decided to do a slightly more elaborate preparation of the drumetts and made "tulips".

It appears this "tulip" preparation is more popular in Japan than here. First, I cut off the wing tips (discard) and then separate the wings and drumetts. For making a drumett "tulip" (here is a visual aid), just loosen the meat from the bone and nick the skin around the joint so that skin and meat can be pushed down and inverted making a "tulip" shaped meat on one end with bone sticking out as a convenient handle. Naturally, I could have deep fried them but I decided to bake them in the oven instead. To make it slightly more interesting, I added a cornmeal crust.

I just evenly coated the the drumett tulips with light olive oil (using my hands) and season with salt and pepper. I made a mixture of yellow cornmeal and potato starch (about 4:1 ratio) and dredged the chicken. I prepped the wings as usual making a cut beween the bones through the skin and seasoned with salt and pepper. I placed the wings and drumetts on a baking sheet with a raised metal rack (I let the drumett tulips stand up with the meat side down). I baked them in a preheated 450F convection oven (very hot) on the top rack for 20-25 minutes until the surface is golden brown as seen in the above picture.

I served this with wedges of lemon and moromi cucumber. It is a bit healthier than deep frying and the cornmeal flavor is kind of nice. 

Sauteed nagaimo 焼き長いも

I have posted quite a few dishes of nagaimo 長芋. You can make so many variations, either cooked or raw, but this grilled nagaimo with black pepper and salt has been featured not once but twice by the expert expats Izakaya connoisseurs and I decided to make my version. Since this was a weeknight, I did not charcoal grill the nagaimo but pan fried it.

This dish is simple to make. Since I do not like the skin I removed it but you could keep the skin on. I sliced it into rather thin (1/4 inch) disks but this could be a bit thicker. I blotted any moisture from the surface using a paper towel. I added light olive oil (1 tbs) to a hot frying pan on medium-high flame and browned one side rather well (bottom side) for 2 minutes. I flipped it over and fried for 1 more minute. I flipped it over again and sprinkled salt and freshly cracked black pepper. You could use different seasoning such as Japanese 7 flavored red pepper  七味唐辛子, sansho 山椒, or even cumin or curry powder if you like.

We had this as an opening dish with leftover yakitori drumettes reheated in a toaster oven as seen above. The nagaimo has a nice mild crunchy crust and becomes very sweet (some starch must convert to sugar). It is really satisfying and the salt and pepper make this dish. Nagaimo can be simmered in broth as well but I never posted it. Maybe that will be my next post on nagaimo.

Yakitori donburi 焼き鳥丼

Yakitori donburi 焼き鳥丼

This a quick "donburi" dish using left over "Yakotori". "Donburi" 丼, which is often shorten to "don", refers to a large (relative to a regular rice bowl) Japanese bowl, like the one seen below. It can also refer to the food placed in the bowl. The basic construction of a "donburi" dish is a bed of cooked rice with whatever toppings may be available accompanied by a small amount of savory sauce. This is a very typical "whole-meal-in-a-bowl" affair. Many Japanese fast food chain restaurants are specialized in this type of dish. Am

ong the most popular are "oyako donburi" 親子丼, which is a combination of chicken and egg  ("oyako" means "mother and offspring", for obvious reason), "gyudon" 牛丼 which is made with small cut-up pieces of seasoned beef, "ten-don" 天丼 which is topped with "tempura", and "katsu-don" カツ丼 which features breaded and deep fried pork cutlet called "tonkatsu". Although I have not tried it, "Yakitori donburi" is reportedly served as a lunch item in a famous Yakitori restaurant in Tokyo. This dish appears to place freshly made Yakitori (2-5 skewer-worth depending on the price) on the bed of rice with some Yakitori "tare" sauce.

When we make Yakitori at home,  we usually will have a good amount of left-overs. When I have thigh or liver left over from a barbecue, I make my version of Yakitori donburi. (I save the left-over barbecued wings and drumettes to re-heat in the toaster oven to eat crispy and hot by themselves). If I have grilled vegetables I add them to the donburi as well.

This time, I used left-over Yakitori liver,  thinly sliced onion, shiitake  mushroom, and greens (here, I used arugula but spinach, broccoli, green beans, snow pea all work well). In a small frying pan, arrange the ingredients except for fast cooking greens such as spinach and arugula. Add a mixture of mirin, dashi, and soy sauce in about equal amounts (or use a commercial Japanese noodle sauce diluted with water). Please make sure that the broth is not too salty since it will reduce during cooking). The liquid should just barely cover the ingredients, cover the pan and simmer until the onion is soft and cooked (10 minutes). Add the greens to cook just for few minutes. At this point, the broth should be reduced to a small amount. My wife likes more broth/sauce than I do. I like just a small amount of strong tasting sauce to moisten the underlying rice rather than enough sauce to make the rice too wet. It's a personal preference, however, and the initial strength and amount of the broth need to be adjusted accordingly. Slide the topping and sauce on the bed of hot rice. I sprinkle "sansho" powder which is a Japanese version of finely ground Sichuan pepper.

Yakitori 焼き鳥 Part 5

Grilled Rice Ball 焼きおにぎり
Salted vegetables 浅漬け 


This is also our favorite to complete a yakitori meal. Mark's book has a more elaborate version of this old favorite,

Grilled Rice Balls with Vegetable Miso (p148).

You can make this using a frying pan and/or in a toaster oven but you never get the crunchy surface you could get when it is grilled over a direct charcoal fire. I usually use  simple miso paste (white or red miso or a mixture of the two), mirin, add sugar, sesame oil or tahini if you so desire, and heat and mix well to reduce to the original consistency of miso). Of course, you could follow the recipe in the book to make Vegetable Miso. This time, I was too lazy to make the miso mixture and used a mixture of soy sauce and mirin (in equal parts) instead. Just brush it on the rice ball toward end of the cooking process. It will penetrate the surface and further caramelize (because of the sugar in the mirin). It makes a nice crunchy crust and adds flavors. My wife likes it extra crunchy and squeezes lemon over it as she eats it. One of the reasons I like this so much is that this reminds me of "okoge" おこげ  or burned rice in the bottom of a rice cooker when rice is made in the old fashioned way rather than with an electric rice cooker. As a kid, I liked to munch on "okoge" with a bit of miso. My wife likes it because "what is not to like about crunchy on the outside soft and piping hot on the inside".

The small vegetable dish on the side goes well with grilled rice balls or any rice dishes, for that matter. We made a simple  "asazuke".  We cut up cucumber, carrot, Nappa cabbage ("hakusai" 白菜) or regular cabbage, diakon, myoga, radish or whatever vegetables are available.  They can be whatever size you like but not too small or too thin so as to give some texture. I add thinly sliced Jalapeno pepper (seeded and deveined), lime slices, finely minced ginger, red pepper flakes, and/or hydrated thinly sliced kelp ("konbu" 昆布). I add enough salt to sparsely coat the veggies ( I never measure) and mixed well by hand. Place it in a Japanse pickling pot. This can be bought at Amazon or simply use a bowl with a plate which can fit inside and weigh it down with whatever is heavy enough (such as a large unopened jar of pickles). In, at least, 4-5 hours or overnight, a surprising amount of water comes out over the vegetables. Move the vegetables in a plastic container and into a refrigerator. This will last at least several days. Use of Jalapeno pepper and lime is our modification of the basic recipe but works well.

Yakitori 焼き鳥 Part 4

Minced Chicken Patties つくね

This is from the recipe in Mark's book (p130). Although "tsukune" is a regular item in any yakitori place, this one is a bit unique and we really liked it. There are many variations to these recipes but the constant is ground or minced chicken. Usually, this is cooked with a "tare" sauce. Many yakotori places mix in chopped up cartilage but we do not like it. The texture of the cartilage reminds us of store-bought ground beef patties with bone fragments in it--which my wife hates. I used the thigh meat here and did not remove the fat as meticulously as I would otherwise do before mincing it by hand (a la Iron Chef Morimoto style) into the desired consistency. Of course, I could have bought ground chicken or used a food processor. Since I did not have "yuzu" (and even limes for some reason), I used lemon zest (using micro-grater) with finely minced onion and some salt following the recipe. For different texture, you could mix in chopped "renkon" or lotus root which gives much gentler crunch than adding cartilage. I think the secret to forming patties without any binders is, as stated in Mark's book, to knead it by hand until it becomes sticky enough. Then, take  a ball of the mixture, and "throw" it on to a cutting board surface forcefully like a pro baseball pitcher (use your discretion, though) several times and shape it to a flat rectangular shape (this removes entrapped air). Put two skewers through as seen here (In this upper picture, I probably browned the surface too much but it tasted just fine) and refrigerate several hours. This step makes the patties firmer (Mark's book mentions this. Do not skip this step. This is very important especially if you do not use any binders and want to use skewers. I refrigerated the skewered patties rather than the meat mixture.) After refrigeration, the patties will not come apart too easily. The lemon flavor is very nice but if we could use a real "yuzu", it probably would have been better. (Sometimes we see yuzu in our Japanese grocery store several days before New Year's day. Unfortunately, they usually look dried up and shriveled--not really good and awfully expensive). Here is the image of "tsukune" and "skin" being grilled side-by-side. Next time, I may mix in "yuzu kosho" (the recipe is included in Mark's book p145 but this can be purchased in small bottle or tube in a Japanese grocery store) to see how it works.

Yakitori 焼き鳥 Part 3

Chicken Skin 雛皮

We love cripsy skin of any kind very much. This is a common yakitori item made of just chicken skin.  But to make it all nicely crunchy without causing flared up when it cooks, which gives it a gasoline-taste,   requires some preparaion. You can use any part of the skin but I usually use the thigh part. To remove any strong smell and to render out some of the excess fat, the skin is placed in salted boiling water with some sake. (Although I have not tried, some people use roasted brown tea or "bancha" 番茶 for this.) I boil the skin a good 5-7 minutes until I see fat floating on the surface. Wash the skin in cold water and pat dry. Next question is how to skewer the pieces. Most yakitori-ya, apear to make multiple folds or make a stack of small square pieces of skin on skewers but, for us, this does not work well since the skin does not get crunchy throughout. Instead the edges of the squares or tops of the folds get too singed and the insides of the folds are soft. You see how we did it in the pictures. You need to avoid flare-ups while grilling by moving them to colder areas of the grill.

Chicken liver 肝 きも

Chicken liver is our (especially my wife's), favorite. Again, it requires some prepping and this is my version. Fortunately, chicken liver is very cheap and comes in plastic tubs at most grocery stores near us. But unfortunately, you need to carefully sort out the fragmented and blemished parts and remove any fat, vessels, connective tissue attached to it. Then soak it in ice water for 10-15 minutes. I then use a marinade consisting of equal parts mirin plus sake and soy sauce with grated ginger root (sort of teriyaki marinade but not very sweet). I marinade the liver for a couple of hours in the refrigerator. When skewering the liver paying attention to some details can help. As you can see in this picture, either I use metal yakitori skewers with flat surface (4 sewers on left) or use two bamboo skewers (two on right) to prevent the liver from rotating when it is turned. I spray the metal grills with a non-stick spray (I use a Weber brand which works best). Attention to these details will result in a lovely textured chicken liver--nice grilled surface with a creamy center, and lots of flavor. We should have some more discussion regarding sake and wine later but the liver goes extremely well with red wine. This evening, we had Syrah from Languedoc, Domaine Famille Ligneres Montagne d'Alaric "Notre Dame" 2004, before switching to sake.

Yakitori 焼き鳥 Part 2

Ume-Shiso Rolled Chiken 梅しそ巻き

This is from the recipe in Mark's Izakaya Cookbook, page 130. "Shiso" or more precisely "Aoziso" or green shiso (Perilla) can be grown very easily in most of US or can be bought in a Japanese grocery store. It has a very distinctive flavor; not quite mint but somewhat similar. The sauce is "Umeboshi" paste ("Bainiku' 梅肉). Umeboshi is salted plum (actually Japanese apricot). They are salted togerther with "Akaziso" or red perilla. The red perilla imparts a red to pink color to the end products. This salty and slightly sour condiment is a very basic Japanese taste. The simplest form of lunch box or  "Bento" consists of a bed of white rice with red umeboshi in the center. Since this looks a bit like the Japanese flag it is called "Hinomaru bento" (Japanese flag lunch box). In any case, I made this paste from my mother's homemade umeboshi by cutting fruit from the stone and putting it into a Japanese mortar and pestle ("Suribachi") with a little bit of sweet cooking wine "mirin" to make a paste. You can buy commercial umebosh paste in a tube as well. This combination is very classic and excellent. Another recipe I often use is chicken tenders tempura with umeboshi paste. I cut a small slit in the meat, put umeboshi paste in the slit and then wrap everything in perilla. I then coat the packet in tempura batter and deep fry. The result is as good as this yakitori.

Yakitori 焼き鳥 Part 1

Our first posting of a dish has to be Yakitori. It simply means "grilled bird". It is skewered small morsels of meat (mostly chicken) or vegetable grilled on a charcoal fire (or any other direct heat sources). Some Yakitori chefs prefer electric far-infrared heating elements for precise temperature control but charcoal is most authentic. Offal are also frequently used such as chicken liver, gizzard, pope's nose (if you know what this is), testes (did you know chicken has testes), skin, even cartilage and pork intestine etc. The seasoning are usually  "Tare (sauce)" or "Shio (salt)". "Tare" sauce main flavors are soy sauce and sugar (some yakitoti places may have a secret "tare" sauce which is said to have been used for generations. New ingredients are added to the old and the bottom of the "kame" or earthenware vessels where tare is kept may contain mysterious "sludge" imparting the  je ne sais qua character to the "Tare" sauce (although this is most likely just a myth) or simply salted ("Shio"). We prefer salt and lemon for most yakitori items.

Although Yakitori-ya or Yakitori restaurant specializes in this one particular type of cuisine and is not a traditional Izakaya, the idea is the same. The classic yakatori-ya is  small, shabby (it has to be) smoke filled (both from cigarette and yakitori grilling) noisy places. They are getting increasingly rare in Japan and are being replaced by more sanitized versions including (again) Yakitori chain stores. In any case, our fond memory of Yakitori goes back 25 years in Sapporo where my wife had first tasted Yakitori with turbid sake ("nigori zake").

Equipment: At home, we use a special Yakitori grill purchased from Korin. Bincho charcoal, which you can purchase from Korin as well, is said to be the best but we use lump hickory charcoal with good results. One can use any direct heat source including gas, charcoal or even electricity. A Weber grill works well but you certainly loose some of the enjoyment of cooking at the table as you eat.

For skewers we use both bamboo and metal. The metal skewers are specifically designed for Yakitori (purchased in one of the stores in Kappabashi district, Asakusa, Tokyo). They are much shorter than regular metal skewers and also flat preventing soft items such as chicken liver from rotating while being turned. You can use two bamboo skewers with the same results. Bamboo skewers, however, need to be pre-soaked to prevent them from burning.

In this picture, taken in our back yard at home, from right to left, we have chicken thigh, pork with onion (this is said to be in a "Muroran" style named after a port town in Hokkaido and eaten with hot mustard), eggplant, shishito (small green Japanese pepper) chicken wings and drumettes. The shishito pepper is usually not hot. However, it is somewhat like playing Russian roulette because some may be unexpectedly "atomic" hot. While this occasionally happens in Japan for some reason it is much more frequent in the United States.