Yakitori, grilled chicken, is a Japanese type of skewered chicken.
It is made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal.
Diners ordering yakitori usually have a choice of having it served with salt (and sometimes lemon juice) or with tare sauce, which is generally made up of mirin, sake, soy sauce and sugar. If tare sauce is specified, the skewers are repeatedly dipped into a tall pot containing the sauce (usually twice, but occasionally three times) during the grilling process.
Yakitori is usually skewered like a kabob. Yakitori is a great appetizer which goes with beer and sake. A common vegetable to grill with chicken is negi. Yakitori skewered with negi is called negima and is a popular kind of yakitori in Japan. Also, there are mainly two kinds of flavors: tare and shio. Tare indicates basting sauce, such as teriyaki sauce. Shio means salt in Japanese.
Skewers of succulent chicken dipped in barbecue sauce, grilled to perfection over hot charcoals, then washed down with cold beer — it’s easy to see the appeal of yakitori after a hard day’s work.
You can find authentic Japanese Yakitori on many Japanese Restaurants in Los Angeles.
