CHICKEN YAKITORI

Steps:

• To prepare the tukedare, combine the soy sauce, sake, water, ginger juice, sesame oil, lemon juice, kombu, and sugar in a saucepot over high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, then decrease the heat and simmer until the kombu becomes soft, about 20 minutes. Strain the sauce into a narrow container and mix in the ichimi togarashi. Set aside.
• To prepare the yakitori, remove the wings from the chicken. Butterfly the middle piece (which has 2 bones), keeping the bone and skin. Thread 2 skewers through both pieces to hold them together, with the skin side down. Set aside.
• Next, remove the skin from the remaining chicken and set aside. Remove the bones from the chicken breast, legs, and thighs and cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Now you're ready to skewer. The trick here is to alternate different combinations of meat and vegetables-have fun with it! To start, thread 3 pieces of dark meat onto a skewer, alternating with some onion and shiitake mushrooms. Be sure to leave at least 1 inch of the skewer uncovered. Now repeat with the chicken breast cubes, this time alternately skewering with scallions and shiitake mushrooms. Next, try a combination with bell peppers. Repeat until all the skewers are prepared. Finally, don't forget to skewer the chicken skin and chicken liver, both traditional delicacies in Japan. But with these two, do not add any vegetables (so the skin and liver can cook uniformly).
• Heat a barbecue grill or stove-top grill pan over medium heat. Set several skewers of chicken and vegetables and the skin on the grill so the uncovered parts of the skewers hang over the edge. Flip the yakitori after 2 minutes, then cook 1 minute longer on the other side to sear evenly. Remove and dip the yakitori into tukedare to lightly coat (you can also use a pastry brush for this step). Now you're ready to slowly caramelize the sauce and cook the chicken, using the following technique: Return the skewers to the grill and cook for 1 minute. Remove and again dip into the tukedare. Return to the grill, turning the skewer to cook the other side for another minute. Repeat these steps until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is caramelized, 8 to 10 minutes. Remember to grill over lower heat than we typically use to barbecue in America, and grill patiently and slowly. You'll turn and dip the skewers at least four times.
• Lightly salt the reserved chicken wings and liver pieces and follow the slow turning technique described above-but do not dip them into the tukedare. In Japan, yakitori wings are traditionally grilled only with a salt coating, not with sauce.
• Line up the grilled yakitori on a platter and serve.