Tskune are skewered chicken meatballs with a perfectly juicy inside and charred exterior and coated with a caramelised sticky sweet soy sauce popular in yakitori restaurants in and around Japan.
I absolutely love Japanese food, but cooking at home can seem like an epic journey trying to source ingredients and trying to get it looking and tasting right.
This fool proof people-pleaser will work as a snack, starter and a main, it will have your guests thinking they've just been to a top yakitori restaurant.
Prep Time: 15 mins for the meatballs, Follow packet instructions for the rice, generally 6-24hrs soak time
Serves: 2
Cook Time: 1 hour
Heat level: Mild
Ingredients
400/500g minced chicken or turkey for low fat option
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2cm ginger, grated
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp sesame oil
1 medium egg
1 tsp cornflour
Sunflower/rapeseed oil, for frying
4 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
1 cob of corn
Sticky rice, follow instructions on the packet, make enough for 4
Sauce:
21⁄2 tbsp soy sauce
21⁄2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar, I use brown caster
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 garlic clove bruised
Method
Put your rice onto cook following packet instructions to get the perfect rice.Prep your corn, meatballs and sauce as follows.
1: Clean your corn ready to be boiled.
2: Combine all the sauce ingredients and set aside.
3: You can use a food processor, or get your hands dirty to make the meatballs it's up
to you. Take the chicken, spring onion and ginger and Place in a large bowl and knead until mixture is smooth and even.
4: Add the rest of the ingredients and repeat previous action.
5: To get a great skewer size ball make them about 2cm in diameter, or use an ice-cream scoop for larger meatballs and shape accordingly.
6: Halfway through the rice cook, put your corn on to boil for about 8 mins
7: When done wrap in foil and set aside.
8: Meanwhile heat enough oil to shallow fry.
9: Carefully add your meatballs to the oil and cook on medium until browned then flip, cover and leave to cook all the way through.
10: Add sauce to the pan and crank up the heat coating and turning the meatballs. (the sauce can burn very quickly so keep an eye out)
11: To char your corn use a grill turning occasionally or a chef's blowtorch for the more speed, carefully slice the corn kernels from the core vertically top to bottom in as big a chunk possible
12: By now your rice should hopefully be delightfully sticky.
13: Plate up as seen in the photo and eat immediately.
Rum Pairing
I'd pair this with a Japanese rum to stay on trend but a Portuguese Red wine barrel casked rum should balance smoothly with the saltiness sweetness of the dish.
