CHICKEN YAKITORI

Usually when people think of Japanese food they would think of sushi. I can assure you that there is a lot more to this wonderful cuisine that will meets the eye.

"Yakitori", is commonly a Japanese type of skewered chicken. The term of Yakitori can also be referred to skewered food in general. The average of Yakitori is made from several bite-sized of chicken meat, normally boneless chicken breast and skewered on the bamboo skewer and grilled.  The history of Yakitori dates back to the "Edo" period around 1600 where it was described as a bird meat stuck on skewer, grilled and flavoured. Yakitori was sold for the first time around 1912 in Kanto, the eastern area in Japan. Though the name means grilled chicken but back then it had various kinds of meat such as horse meat, beef guts and even dog meat just to make it cheaper and it had become popular among all Japanese due to the low cost. Cheap Yakitori went down well with alcohol, so it appeared majority on the Izakaya (pub) menus. For more than 100 years, this traditional Japanese food has been loved by many people of all sorts, elder to children at all the time. 

The sauce for Yakitori plays a very important part in the dish. Soy sauce are the main heart in the recipe but the thing is not all kind of soy sauce can be used in cooking Yakitori. To most people all soy sauces are the same and but like all products they come in varying degrees of qualities. Originally, Chinese developed soy sauce and it was produced using a shorter brewing process as well as having a higher salt content than the Japanese version of soy sauce. Many content caramel colouring, added sugar, mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) and preservatives  which will give the sauce kind of artificial taste. In another version, authentic Japanese soy sauce, also referred as "Shoyu" is brewed with cultured yeast for many months. The latter generally has a lower salt content and includes roasted wheat which in turn improves the flavour, aroma and the colour too.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pieces of boneless chicken breast
• 7 wooden skewers

• 150 ml of Japanese soy sauce
• 80 ml of sake 
• 50 gm of sugar
• 3 tablespoon of honey
• 1 piece of crushed garlic

Soaked the wooden skewers in water for at least 30 minutes, this can avoid the skewers from getting burned.

Make the sauce. Stir in soy sauce, sugar, sake and crushed garlic in a small pan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, or until the sauce is reduced by one-third. Set aside let it cool down.

Cut each chicken thigh into bite-size pieces and place it in the sauce to marinade for an hour or more.

Preheat the griller.Thread the chicken on to the drained skewers. Grilled under medium heat, brushing generously several times with the sauce. Allow 5-10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked but still moist.

Drizzled the remaining sauce on the Yakitori.