Yakitori... redux

Yakitori the other night was so good, I had to make it at home. My friend Rice-eating-lanscaper-guy complained several times that he was bored, so I invited him over for a little "dinner party" after dropping puppy-white-boy off at Metro to get to Virgin Grain High End Food Emporium.

Side note: I live in the Atwater Village/Silverlake area and have found that Super King (real name) supermarket on San Fernando just past the 2 Freeway is an excellent market. Got lots of ethnic things, a huge deli counter, and a butcher that has a lot of fresh things. To top that off, it's CHEAP!!!

Armed with a 5-lb whole chicken ($4.58) I get home and start dismembering it for parts. Breast... Breast... Skin... Thigh... Thigh (not THAI like the girl spelled it at Kokekokko on the sold out board).. Drum Stick... Drum Stick... Wing... Wing... Carcass. Whew! That was some work. Next time, just get pre-dismembered chicken and proceed directly to skewering.

Basically, the means here are simple. Cut up chicken into small parts and thread onto skewers.

I ended up this time making the following out of my whole dismembered chicken.

2 x Skin
4 X Breast
2 X Breast Tenders
4 X Thigh
2 X Negima (thigh and Japanese onion)
2 X Wings
2 X Thin Sliced Breast wrapped around Okra (stole that one from Kokekokko)
5 X Tsukune (chicken meat balls: Take 2 knives and chop the hell out of a chicken breast until it's "ground" Mix in one egg, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, dried yuzu peel, 5-6 shiso leaves julienned and chopped, and mix with hands until it comes together -- put on skewer)

Not too bad for a single chicken. I didn't bother with the drum sticks today, so those went in the fridge for me to use for dinner another day.

The rest is simple... cook the skewers over charcoal until done. Better yet, put charcoal into a table-top grill (Konro -- look at pics, or MacGyver one out of a small terracotta pot and some wire mesh or a metal cooling rack or something) so you don't have to get your lazy ass up and you can be a host. Do them a few (of the same) at a time and enjoy a beer with friends. Place just a teensy bit of a condiment or two (my list below) just before serving and keep your guest(s) dazzled with your ability to put flavors together. Continue for several hours until all the chicken runs out.



Where's the recipe for my sauce, you ask? I took a page from the grill master at Kokekokko, and did a purely salt based menu. All you have to have is some good sea salt ready to pinch or grind over the chicken while it's cooking. The rest is in the condiments. I had:

Lemon
Pepper
Sansho Pepper
Shichimi Pepper
Yuzu Peel Powder
Grated Garlic
Grated Ginger
Wasabi
Yuzu Kosho
Butter

Most of these go on alone.

Lemon with sansho is one of my favorites. The acid blends well with the numbing flowery-ness of the sansho. The wings got a Lemon-shichimi combo which works well too.

Although not very "Japanese," a combo that really worked was Grated garlic, pepper (I used a 5-pepper blend here, but regular black would work fine), and butter. Sinful I tell ya, sinful!