Chicken Yakitori & Asian Vegetables

Recipe Review: Easy to Make Asian Marinade to use for grilled chicken (and veggies!)

I cook all the time. Everything from fancy recipes to easy dinners, and I'd like to think that I'm a pretty good cook. In general most of what I make gets good feedback from the people who have tried it, but the most enthusiastic review that I've ever gotten back from Kevin is for Chicken Yakitori that I made for the first time this fall. The recipe was originally from the New York Times and passed on to me by my dad. We made it again this week and it was just as good as we remembered.

Chicken Yakitori

yield: 4 servings
source: Nancy Clark, New York Times

1 lb chicken
1/2 cup dark soy sauce or tamari
1/4 cup mirin
2 tablespoons sake
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
scallions thinly sliced, for garnish

Cut the chicken into one in pieces and place in a shallow dish

In a small saucepan, combine soy sauce or tamari, mirin, sake, brown sugar, garlic and ginger. Bring to a simmer and cook 7 minutes, until thickened. Reserve 2 Tablespoons for serving. Pour remaining sauce over  chicken, cover & chill 1-4 hours.

If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak them in water for one hour. Preheat grill or broiler. Thread chicken pieces onto skewers, and grill or broil, turning halfway. Serve drizzled with reserved sauce and garnished with scallions.

printable recipe 

Just as a side note "Yakitori" is just a way to say meat on a skewer- like Kebab or Satay, except Yakitori is always made with chicken. (at least according to wikipedia)

The perfect side dish to go with this is Asian vegetables in the same sauce. We used eggplant, broccoli, bok choy, bean sprouts, snow peas & zucchini.

We threw the yakitori sauce, salt & pepper, and a whole bunch of minced garlic on the veggies and packaged them up in tin foil. Then threw it on the grill for 15-20 minutes. This produces a really cool half grilled half steamed combo. Since we were cooking for two we didn't use as much chicken so had more then enough sauce to go on the veggies, but if you are making the full recipe you might have to make some extra yakitori sauce.