In Pursuit of Chicken Yakitori

[mike.stavlund]

Good plan, Chad.  Practice taking the wishbone out of your Peruvian chicken, and you'll be a good way toward deboning a whole chicken.

[pbe gummi bear]

Gosh, that's gorgeous, gummi. 

--Great feedback re: flavor, too-- I have been known to go a little heavy on the salt, so it's good for our friends to have a different data point. 

--My pieces are too big then, too. 

-- A well-balanced tare is a magical thing.  Pour some over rice or rice noodles, and you're got two tickets to food paradise. 

--Lemon is a *great idea*. 

--That's a funny looking Weber you got there, my man.

Mike, the big cut's are problematic for a few reasons:

It's hard to get the char on the outside and cook the piece through without overcooking the meat. This is especially true for chicken breast as the meat won't stay tender.

If your piece is too big, you'll need alot more sauce to maintain the flavor.

[1buckie]

  "This is especially true for chicken breast as the meat won't stay tender."

A good vote for a longer marinade, or even brine time on those pieces (& yes, smaller pieces)

One thing I've found for breast pieces is to cut long, lengthwise pieces & then add to the skewers in an "S" or "Z" pattern.....squiggles, in other words.....

More surface area, more sauce surface available, quicker cookup........

[pbe gummi bear]

We made chicken Tare-yaki with the leftover chicken and tare sauce. Soooo good- just add rice.

[mike.stavlund]

With thanks to gummi for the inspiration and information, and for the ongoing coaching, I tried the yakitori again tonight.  Had some random pieces of chicken leftover from chicken and dumplings earlier this week and a boneless roast smoked chicken planned for tomorrow, so filled in with yakitori tonight.  Refrained from brining it first, and it had plenty of flavor. 

One key to this dish is the sauce:  David Chang's tare sauce from his amazing book Momofuku.  It uses the bones from one chicken, roasted for about 45 minutes, then simmered with sake, mirin, and soy sauce for another hour.  Incredible sauce, and very versatile.

I start with one small chimney of lump.


My setup.  I use my SS, with two upside-down stamped metal coal baskets to elevate an extra bottom grate (the addition of expanded metal would be even better).  Then wrap 4 fire bricks in foil to keep them free of sauce, and pour coals down the middle.  You can see in this photo that I sear the pieces over direct heat, then brush them with the tare sauce and park them in indirect territory to finish if necessary.  Elevating the whole works allows easier access to the skewers, yet you can still lid up to quell any flare-ups.


The chicken should be nearly cooked before it gets brushed with the sauce, and I usually brush it again once it's off the heat.  Note the use of metal skewers (wood ones seem to burn quickly, dropping the meat right onto the coals), and double-skewers, which keep the pieces from flipping around.


Tenderloins and some dark meat finishing up:


Plated up with some sobe noodles (buckwheat and yam) simmered to cook, then drained and rinsed with cold water and coated with the leftover tare sauce (another nice thing about not coating the meat until it's finished cooking is that you can safely use the sauce for other food items).  Delicious noodles, for sure.


Tenderloin, chicken 'lollipop', and some nice chunks of dark meat.

[mike.stavlund]

I should also add that vegetables are a great thing to cook this way too.  I've done mushrooms and rounds of squash, but the very best was peeled planks of red bell peppers-- a nice sear and browned edges, then brushed with some tare sauce was incredible. 

...it's just that we had almost zero veggies on hand tonight.  Just a lonely head of cabbage and some carrots waiting for St. Patrick's day. 

[1buckie]

MacGyver Up !!!!!!

I like your raised setup & the cookup is looking real, real nice !!!!!

[DoppelBock]

Awesome looking Mike!

[pbe gummi bear]

I made yakitori yesterday "on" my performer (sort of).

Notes:

I would like to get the charcoal closer to the meat. I would say use more charcoal too, but I feel like that would be hard to control on a small cooker. When I get new skewers I'll try the mike.stavlund suspended skewers method

We used smaller cuts of meat this time and it worked out OK. Cooking it was easier and that texture was great but I like to have more meat per bite.

Binchotan is a pain to light but burns hot and smokefree.

Don't forget the lemon and Ichima Togarashi (red pepper flakes)

We cook 2-4 skewers at a time and eat them as they come off. It's more fun that way.

This was a Japanese style meal, cooked on a Japanese style cooker, cooked with Japanese style charcoal, and Japanese whiskey. It was alot of fun!


Cutting the meat. We used a smaller chicken this time, and smaller cuts of meat.



Assembled



I found some Binchotan locally. This brand is made in Myanmar, not Japan.



Binchotan is lump, made of oak. Alot of the pieces look like branches. It is super dense, and sounds like ceramic when you tap it. Read more about Binchotan on wikipedia



Binchotan is a b*tch to light. I had it in a chimney and the ss gas assist first, but it died out when I poured it in the kamado. I then put the charcoal directly on the burner until they were glowing RED HOT.



Okra and shishito peppers



Today's setup. My drink of choice is Hakushu 12yr whiskey from Suntory. Good stuff.



I had the iGrill setup on this one because I was curious of the grate temp. The Binchotan stayed around 350F for close to 2 hours.



First skewers, leek & thigh and breast.



First skewer to come off- note that it doesn't have that much char on it. The cooker was still warming up.



Next skewers- thigh and leek. Looking better on heat now.



Some cartilage and shishito peppers



Neck (top) and thigh



Breast with the ichimi togarashi red pepper flakes



Mochi! Rice dough cakes. First time I've cooked these and the top was was overcooked. oops.



The inside is gooey



Okra and breast



Breast. I was pretty happy with the char but the fire could have been a little hotter.



Okra and Tenderloin



Skin and Tenderloin



Skin causes flareups. 



Chicken tenderloin is slowly becoming one of my faves. The meat tastes like chicken breast, but with a looser stringy consistency.



Skin. It was starting to get dark. I lost alot of time trying to light the binchotan.

Tail and Belly



Did I mention that this binchotan stay's hot? It doesn't produce smoke or thick ash on itself so it's good for high heat cooks.



Aftermath. we went through about 40 skewers.



Cheers!

[1buckie]

Nice !!!

you guys are way gettin' the hang of this !!!!

I remember the zinger skewer guy from Smoke Ring said something about using metal skewers only, in that they heat & cook from the inside also.....thoughts?

I would think it wouldn't matter on a very fast cook like these.............