Yakitori Grill

By Bob Knetzger
Category: Food & Beverage, Fun & Games
Time Required: 3-4 hours
Difficulty: Moderate

One of the most memorable and delicious aspects of travel is sampling the local foods. A trip to Japan gave me a chance to enjoy favorites like takoyaki (octopus fritters), okonomiyaki (cabbage frittatas), and other Asian eats in their native setting. A new (to me) treat was yakitori, a simple bar food snack of grilled chicken.

In the Tokyo neighborhood of Shinjuku, I saw (and smelled) enticing restaurants featuring sizzling street-side grills. Unlike big American grills that cook anything from burgers to ribs to steaks, these specially sized grills were designed to do one thing and one thing only: skewers. Short skewers loaded with chicken, asparagus, meatballs, and other simple ingredients spanned the narrow troughs of red-hot coals. The suspended foods cooked quickly and without burning or sticking to a grate or grill surface. And the offerings included nearly all the parts of the chicken, from succulent breast (torinku) to crunchy cartilage (nankotsu) and delicate, crispy chicken skin (torikawa). Yum!

Back home, I wanted a way to cook yakitori myself, so I came up with this easy-to-make grill design and some specially designed roll-proof, double-crook skewers. Use them to try delicious yakitori recipes.

Steps

Step #1: Prepare the metal sheet.

WARNING: Don’t use galvanized steel for the main body of the grill. The zinc coating gives off dangerous fumes when heated — not good for a food-making project!
Sand down any sharp edges or burrs on the aluminum sheet with 100-grit sandpaper. For extra safety, wear gloves when handling the sheet metal.
Measure and mark a series of 5/32" holes that will serve as holders for the skewers. Make a line ½" below the 24" edge of the aluminum sheet. Starting 3" from the end, measure and mark 10 holes with 2" between their centers.
Use the center punch and hammer to make dimples, to keep the drill bit from wandering when you drill. Then drill all 10 holes.
Drill 5 holes along each short end of the sheet. These holes will be for attaching the pop rivets to the rims of the cake pans. Draw a line 1" in from the edge, then measure, mark, and punch the position of 1 hole at dead center, 6" in from each side. Then do the same for 2 holes 1" from each side, and 2 holes 3½" from each side. Drill them with the 3/32" bit.

Conclusion

Let's get cookin'

Put the grill on a fireproof surface away from any flammable vegetation or structures. Use crumpled paper and make a mound of charcoal in the center of the grill. For best flavor use binchotan (special Japanese high-carbon content, “white” charcoal) or mesquite and avoid chemical starters. Light the coals and let them burn until uniformly covered in white ash — about 30 minutes. Can’t wait? Use your shop vac with the hose on the outlet as a blower to fan the flames. You’ll have red-hot coals in just a few minutes, but be careful — don’t blow hot embers all over, go easy!

MAKE: Recipe

Yakitori (Chicken on Skewers)

Ingredients

1lb boneless chicken thighs, with or without skin

¾ cup mirin (sweet rice wine)

½ cup soy sauce

½ cup sake

¼ cup sugar

Skewers

Combine mirin, soy sauce, sake, and sugar in a small pan and boil over medium heat until slightly thickened.

Cut chicken into bite-size chunks or strips. Thread the meat evenly on the skewers, centering on the skewer to fit inside the grill. If using bamboo skewers, soak them in water first to prevent burning. Brush with sauce.

Spread the coals to make a uniform layer along the middle of the trough. Insert the skewers into the holes. Rotate the skewers every few minutes, brushing on more sauce. Repeat until golden brown.

This project first appeared in MAKE Volume 30, page 108.

2 Responses to Yakitori Grill

Bob Knetzger on August 7th, 2012 at 8:20 pm said:

Good question, Kitt.

My first prototypes used very thin aluminum (repurposed clothes dryer vent) and that did not hold up. I revised to use heavier material that could still be rolled into shape by hand. I haven’t had a melt thru …yet. YMMV.

Bob K

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Bob Knetzger on October 28th, 2012 at 5:11 am said:

tvswitcher, please be VERY careful! I had the same idea when I first started this project, but there is a serious and potentially dangerous situation. As noted in the article DO NOT USE GALVANIZED steel. The zinc coating, if heated too much, will create zinc oxide fumes . If you inhale it you can become very sick. It has been fatal as well. Google “Zinc oxide poisoning welding” –this can happen when welding galvanized material and using galvanized containers for cookers or bbq’s. Galvanized containers are not safe for food or cooking. Don’t do it.

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