I love yakitori (焼き鳥). My favorites aren't the "usual" tori (chicken) pieces, but rather the odds and ends like gizzard (sunagimo: 砂肝), liver (kimo: レバー), skin (kawa: 皮), and cartilage (nankotsu: 軟骨). Occasionally, this solicits grimaces from people who aren't used to eating parts of a chicken that are discarded by most Americans. One of the few types of yakitori I always order that's made from regular meat is tsukuné (つくね), chicken meatballs. (My current favorite version is the one from Torihei in Torrance (CA).)
So when I saw that Nami-san of Just One Cookbook posted her recipe for tsukuné, I had to give it a try. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to ground chicken that day so I made do with ground turkey. I would have loved to include the shiso leaves but no luck there, either. (I should've called the tiny mom-and-pop Japanese market in Bethesda to see if they had any.)
Shiso is a lovely herb that's part of the mint family, but is sometimes referred to as Perilla, Beefsteak Plant, or Japanese Basil. I would love to grow some here along with other basic herbs; it goes really well with Japanese udon noodles, fried as tempura, eaten with sashimi, and rolled and grilled with thin-sliced pork. My mom includes it in her homemade gyoza filling.
Anyway, I made do with what I had and decided that because I was too lazy to skewer the tsukune, I would just make meatballs. I also don't have a grill rack so I broiled the meatballs on a grill frying pan.
Tsukuné Ingredients:
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 2 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon miso (I used
- 4 scallions
- 10 Parella leaves (shiso: しそ), if you have it
- salt
- shichimi-togarashi (七味唐辛子) pepper, as a condiment
Yakitori Taré Sauce Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 1/8 cup sake
- 1/8 cup water
- 1 teaspoon packed brown sugar
- green part of 1 scallion
Follow the rest of the instructions on Just One Cookbook.
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