Grilled Chicken Balls Cooked on Bamboo Skewers

Name: Grilled Chicken Balls Cooked on Bamboo Skewers (Tsukune)
Yield: Serves four
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 300 g/11 oz skinless chicken, minced (ground); shichimi togarashi or sansho (optional); 2.5 ml/½ tsp cornflour (cornstarch) blended with 5 ml/1 tsp water; 60 ml/4 tbsp sake; 75 ml/5 tbsp shoyu; 15 ml/1 tbsp mirin; 15 ml/1 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar; 10 ml/2 tsp plain (all-purpose) flour; 2.5 ml/½ tsp salt; 2.5 cm/1 in piece fresh root ginger, grated; 90 ml/6 tbsp dried breadcrumbs; 10 ml/2 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

Tsukune

Preparation info

Serves
four

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Japanese Cookbook

By Emi Kazuko and Yasuko Fukuoka

Published 2024

About

These tasty chicken balls, known as Tsukune, are another Yakitori bar regular as well as a favourite family dish, as it is easy for children to eat directly from the skewer. You can make the balls in advance up to the end of step 2, and they freeze very well.

Ingredients

300 g/11 oz skinless chicken, minced (ground)
2 eggs

Asia
Japan
Main course

Method

Soak eight bamboo skewers overnight in water. Put all the ingredients for the chicken balls, except the ginger, in a food processor and blend well.
Wet your hands and scoop about a tablespoonful of the mixture into your palm. Shape it into a small ball about half the size of a golf ball. Make a further 30-32 balls in the same way.