Clean Eats with Toriniku Yakitori

I try to be thoughtful in my choices–I want to design my life so I can be kind, healthy, and happy. For the be healthy part of my goal, I try to plan my menu around things that are both healthy and easy to cook AND very importantly, that my family will enjoy.

One menu item that my family has not rejected is yakitori. Somehow, food on a stick is fun. Many cultures have food on sticks and I enjoy them all–from yakitori to kebabs to corn dogs–all delicious!

If you go to Japan, you will find restaurants dedicated solely to yakitori which is defined as grilled chicken. At my house, I just grill chicken thighs, but if you go to a yakitori restaurant in Japan, you are likely to find an assortment of chicken parts on the menu including gizzard, liver, heart, and tail. On this evening, I went to my cookbook library and used this recipe for yakitori that I enjoy. (Here is a link to the Let’s Cook Japanese Food cookbook by Amy Kaneko on Amazon.)Amy Kaneko has a recipe for Toriniku to Negi Yakitori in her cookbook that I modified for my dish.

I soaked bite-sized chicken thighs, onions, and zucchini in a marinade of shoyu, mirin, and sugar. The recipe didn’t call for zucchini but since I had some locally-grown zucchini from my CSA delivery from the Hawaii Food Basket, I decided to add it to the mix. After about 30 minutes, I threaded the ingredients on skewers and prepared them for cooking.