Japanese cooking

Yakitori (Japanese Grilled Chicken Skewers)

Yakitori (焼き鳥, yaki = grilled, tori = bird) is one of Japan's most beloved street foods and izakaya staples — bite-sized pieces of chicken threaded onto bamboo or metal skewers and grilled over charcoal, seasoned with either coarse salt (shio style) or brushed repeatedly with tare, a soy-mirin-sake glaze that caramelizes into a lacquered, sweet-savory coating. Authentic yakitori is cooked over binchotan (白炭), a white oak charcoal that burns at very high temperature with minimal smoke, allowing the fat dripping from the chicken to produce fragrant vapour rather than flare-ups. The two defining skewer styles covered here are negima (ねぎま) — chicken thigh alternated with long onion — and the plain momo (もも) thigh skewer. Both are grilled in multiple passes, dipped in tare, returned to the grill, and repeated until the exterior is lacquered dark and the interior is cooked through.