2/13/2007

Many of you probably know what Yakitori (焼き鳥, やきとり) is – it’s basically a Japanese type of skewered chicken. But the Japanese also skewer other meats, seafood and poultry to which they call it Kushiyaki. However, the term Yakitori can sometimes be refered to skewered food in general. Skewered food are also called brochettes or satay in other parts of the world. So today, I am going to present to you my version of skewered yakitori but instead of chicken, I’m going to use Salmon, which is then wrapped in bacon. And instead of using mirin and sugar, i used honey as my marinate – which i think gives it that nice brown caramelized flavor.

This is a very simple and very easy to make recipe. You can make a lot in advance, which makes this a very good party food ;) The salmon wrapped in bacon gives it a unique smokey flavor which complements the honey and soy marinate. And since it’s bacon, the drippings from it ensures that the salmon stays moists and succulent after it’s cooked!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

For the fish marinate:
1 tbsp of grated ginger
2 cloves of grated garlic
1/4 cup of soy sauce
3 tablespoon of honey
1/2 teaspoon pepper

500 g of Salmon fillet, clean and cut into 1 inch chunks
10 strips of bacon or more
1 onion, quartered

bamboo skewers soaked in water for 30 minutes

Method

1. Combine the ingredients for the fish marinate together. Stir well and set aside.
2. Make sure that your salmon cubes are dry off excess water. It helps to marinate better. Put the pieces into a container.
3. Pour the fish marinate into the salmon cubes and make sure the marinate covers every bit of the pieces. Cover and marinate for 2 hours at least.
4. Take your bamboo skewers and skewer a cube of salmon and alternate with a little bit of onion, and continue until you reach the tip of the skewer.
5. take a slice of bacon and drape it around the skewered fish. Set aside and repeat step 4 and 5 till you’re out of fish.
6. Let the skewers sit in room temperature for about 30 minutes before you start baking them in the oven. Pre-heat oven to 400 Fahrenheit or 205 Celsius. You can also barbeque this… it’s prefect for bbqs! But since it’s winter where i am, i have to make do with an oven……pfft.
7. Put each skewer on a baking pan and bake for 45mins. Turn over the skewers once after 15 minutes. At the final 5 mins of the cooking time – turn the grill on and grill till the brochettes are a little brown.

Source: A series of Kitchen Experiments; Wikipedia