Today we are cooking up yakitori.
That's chicken and leek skewers with a teriyaki sauce.
And we're going to show you how to make Japanese 7-spice.
So, Ben's just got back from Japan
and he reckons we can make this pretty damn authentically.
Let's see.
So before we get to the yakitori itself, we're going to make an incredible Japanese 7-spice seasoning.
This is phenomenal. You often find it on the tables in a lot of restaurants.
It's there and it's this blend that is kind of orangey-reddy in colour.
It needs orange and ginger, which we're going to dry out in the oven.
[Barry] That's two. [Ben] And then blend up sesame.
[Barry] Three. [Ben] Black and white. [Barry] Four.
[Ben] Some chili, salt, and pepper. [Barry] Seven!
So, first up: the orange. Peel it.
And the ginger we're just going to slice into thin slices.
Lay it on a baking tray and then we'll dry it out.
So with the ginger and the orange scattered on a tray, it's going to go into the oven we preheated at 150ºC.
It needs about 15, 20, 25 minutes. It depends on how juicy your orange is.
But basically, you want it to dry out without burning.
After that amount of time, it looks something like this.
[Barry] So what does the drying it out actually do to it?
Well, we want to make a dry spice blend that you can keep in the cupboard for a while
[Barry] Bitter. [Ben] or on the table without it going off.
Next thing we want to do is toast off our sesame seeds. So that's our white sesame and the black sesame, in a pan over medium heat.
Keep them moving so they toast evenly. And the chili: I'm just going to cut up into chunks,
but I'm going to deseed.
So then we want to basically grind them all up into one spice blend.
So we place all of our orange and ginger in there.
[Barry] The smells of this already are incredible. [Ben] So good.
It's seasoning, so salt is one of those seasonings.
Traditionally, it would be a Japanese pepper,
but we haven't got access to that. So we're using paprika, so more of a Spanish pepper.
But it gives it a very similar kind of flavour.
[Ben] It's not a hot pepper. [Barry] Right.
The heat comes from a little bit of chili.
and then once those are toasted, I can see a nice golden colour around the edges.
[Barry] It smells like popcorn. [Ben] It has that kind of nutty aroma.
[Ben] And then we're going to grind the whole thing up in a spice grinder.
Of course you can use a pestle and mortar if you prefer.
And what you're left with is an amazing spice blend.
[Ben] So that's the spice blend done. We're now going to do two things simultaneously:
1. Cook our rice. So, jasmine rice.
You might want to wash this, but to be honest, you can get away without.
So the rice is going in. And whatever volume you use of rice, or weight
One and a half of cold water. So that's 200 g with 300 ml of water.
Add it in with a pinch of salt.
Put a lid on it, then heat it to a very gentle simmer.
Bubble it away for about 8-10 minutes.
Then take it off, leave it to cook and steam in the residual heat with the lid still on.
The key here is you don't want to let any of the steam out.
Occasionally, you can swirl the pan, but don't lift the lid. All that water will come out.
And that's when your rice will be too dry to the ratio of rice to water. And that's not good.
Don't be tempted. I know it's tempting.
At the same time we're going to make our amazing sauce,
which is: mirin, rice wine vinegar, soy, and sugar.
If you want all the weights and measurements, check out Sorted Food. The link is down below.
They are all going to go into a pan, be boiled, and reduced down to a sticky syrup.
[Barry] So essentially, we're making a teriyaki sauce?
[Ben] I guess that's kind of what it is.
It is the balance of sugar and the rice wine vinegar and the salty soy.
We're also going to put the fragrance of orange in there.
The orange we peeled earlier: all of that juice can go in.
Next up, the yakitori itself.
So essentially, we're going to do skewers of chicken and Welsh onions.
[Barry] Welsh onions? [Ben] That was a direct translation I saw a lot in Japan.
And we wondered what it was at first on the menu.
Then we were like, "It's a leek, obviously."
[Ben] They use leeks quite a bit, so we're going to use exactly that. [Barry] I had no idea.
So if you take chicken thighs, all you want to do is cut them into pieces.
Each thigh maybe into three. So you end up with three roughly equal pieces from each chicken thigh.
And then the leeks. All we're going to do is take the top off and cut them into chunks.
And next up: a metal skewer–or bamboo skewers if they have been soaked.
Then you can basically alternate leek and chicken.
So if you cut the leek in half, you want to go right through the middle
to make sure all those layers are going to stay intact.
And then the chicken. Find the nicest side, fold it over, and then skewer right through.
[Ben] One other thing I learned in Japan was when they cook so much of their food
the seasoning is so simple.
Less is more. So for this, a little bit of oil.
And then we're going to season it with almost like a homemade MSG.
It's like salt, as in you put it in and it enhances all the flavours.
[Barry] Right. [Ben] Except salt also has it's own flavour: salty.
[Barry] Gotcha. [Ben] Umami and MSG and things like that
do the same thing. They bring out the other flavours,
but they don't have their own flavour.
Ah, so it's the artificial MSG that's the bad one?
Yes. What we're going to try to do is recreate one
with equal quantities of salt, garlic powder, and white pepper.
They are then gonna go under a grill for 8 to 10 minutes.
If you are cooking outside put it over a char-grill.
You can do it in a cast iron pan.
It's a very, very delicious dish and well worth giving a go.
The final thing to do is drizzle that sauce,
which has just reduced right down, over the chicken.
[Barry] Oh yes!
[Ben] We'll serve the rest in a dip pot on the side.
There it is: Yakitori Sorted!
[Barry] That is beautiful.
[Ben] The chicken is still succulent because it literally just cooked through,
the metal skewer helping.
[Barry] Well, this is our attempt at making yakitori.
But let us know what you would do differently.
If you want to give the recipe a go, as always, the full recipe details are available down below.