13 May 2015

Yakitori Chicken


Today a tiring day, finally able to sit down and enjoy my own time. Going through the photos backlog and decided to post Yakitori.

One of my family favourite on-the-go snack is Yakitori the Japanese grilled chicken. We ate a lot of it when we were in Singapore. Never cross my mine to make one myself until I saw Nami of Just One Cookbook Yakitori video. It looks easy and simple and I just went on to try it out. 

All these photos here were from my first attempt, the second attempt was for a friend birthday. I would say that the taste of my second attempt was better because I marinated the chicken, also I added a bit of sake, dark soy sauce and oyster sauce into the sauce to enhance its taste, yes, I prefer stronger taste. Trust me, a little golden brown on the meat will make it more appetizing. 

10 mins of broiling time will give you a perfect tender Yakitori, however it also depends on the size of your chicken chunk. 






Recipe adapted from Just one Cookbook with changes in the method.

(Yield 20 skewers)
Ingredients:
20 bamboo skewers soak in water for 30 mins.
20 pieces of chicken drumsticks, debone and cut the meat into two for each of them. (if using chicken tights will be better)
9 scallions
some vegetable oil

Source:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
1/4 cup water
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 cup sake
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce


Method:
1. Prepare sauce: Add all the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and add green part of the scallion, bring to boil. Lower the heat to low and allow it to simmer until the liquid reduced by half. Leave to cool in room temperature.
2. Use 1/3 of the sauce to marinate the chicken pieces for at least two hours. (I placed it in fridge overnight) Reserve 1/3 of the sauce for coating while broil, and another 1/3 of the sauce for final coating.
3. Place two chicken pieces into one skewer, in between can add desire vegetables like green or red capsicum, repeat until all skewers used.
4. Preheat the oven to 230C with grill function, arrange the chicken skewers on the wire rack with a tray below to catch the dripping sauce. Broil the chicken for 6 mins, bring out the chicken skewer and brush with some sauce. Bring the Yakitori back to oven and continue broil it for 4 mins. Transfer to serving plate and brush the remaining 1/3 sauce with a clean brush. Serve warm.