How to Grill Yakitori

METHOD: Direct grilling

Chicken on a stick is Japan’s national snack, enjoyed at crowded lunch counters and smoky yakitori parlors day and night. The basic recipe features tiny pieces of chicken grilled on slender bamboo skewers with a sweet-salty glaze made from sugar, soy sauce, and mirin (sweet rice wine). The variations are endless: white meat, dark meat, chicken skin, gizzards, and livers with an interspersing of scallions, leeks, shiitake mushrooms, or any other ingredient an imaginative griller might fancy. The essence of yakitori is its delicacy and its diminutive size. Note the double skewering technique here. Inserting two skewers through the meat side by side keeps the pieces of chicken from slipping.