Go to the Recipe: Transform Thanksgiving With Turkey Yakitori
Love this video! Especially the slightly sarcastic text overlay. Reminds me of visiting small villages in Japan and trying to order Yakitori at the only (open) restaurant in town without speaking Japanese. Let's see if I can convince the family on this.
Btw I zest lemons like Kyle
Looks like fun, but with an expected guest list of 45 people for Thanksgiving, this couldn't work for me. I can think of doing it for a Sunday night gathering though.
Grant, you need to leave and start up something of your own where you can swear if swearing should be warranted.
Grant, great recipe but I think you have your Japanese backwards. Tori is not charcoal—that’s yaki (grilled). So for yakisoba, yakitori, takoyaki, the “grilled” is the common identifier here (grilled noodle, grilled bird, grilled octopus). What you said, that you could also call it “shichimen chou tori” wouldn’t be charcoal-turkey because tori is bird, so it would be “seven-faced-bird bird” or “turkey bird” essentially. You’ve got it right the first way. Yakiturkey is a portmanteau that makes sense, as far as bilingual mashups go. Loving the newsletter.
Could you please let us know where you bought the charcoal grill (and the charcoal)? Thanks.
Henry
@CD Someone's not all that familiar with ChefSteps from years past.
I would totally do Turkey roulades in that case. Sous vide and hold in the fridge, then fire when ready.
Actually I do one roulade -- white meat breasts for the traditionalists -- and then with the wings and legs and two more turkeys -- spatchcocked -- I smoke them. Then when they cool, I slice them, vacuum seal them and put them in the fridge. I only use the sous vide for warming all of them up on Thanksgiving. Everything is juicy and delicious and no pots and pans to clean up on Thankgsiving day! For that many people, I find this is my best way to provide something delicious and traditional and yet realistic for a crowd prepared in a home kitchen.
There are links to both items in the grilling activity page for you.
@Henry. Small grills capable of the heat you need for yakitori can be bought on auction sites and in high end grill stores. If you get a good one and don't cook for a lot of folks it's all the grill you need. You can unass the goofy gas grills and sell the Green Egg to someone less informed. But. Get a Diatomite based grill. That's a white cement like substance. The one that Grant is using is such a thing. It's fairly refractory but more importantly is a good insulator. Forcing most of the heat from the burning fuel up to the food. Cast iron hibachis wont grill like a diatomitic konro or yak. They lose too much heat. I charge mine with oxygen to sear steaks and even that does not deteriorate it.
This is not high heat cooking. It's ultra high heat cooking. The cooking plane of my grill regularly hits 1000F and if I want I can get it much higher. You need that to char the chicken but not make jerky out of it. It's like cooking in a tandoor. Hot as Sh*t and fast.
Here are some of our favorite hibachi grills.
Diatomite Stone Hibachi/Yakitori Grill – Our number one choice.
Fire Sense Large Yakatori Charcoal Grill – Starter grill.
Livart Orange Deluxe Electric Barbecue Grill – Convenient for indoor grilling.
I did this for thanksgiving.. made turkey and chicken skewers.. it was just amazing.. threw them straight on a grill, everyone just loved it.. skewers and beers in the back yard!
Thanks @Grant Lee Crilly the butchery vid was super helpful.
Just did this with 15 lb. organic bird and, as promised it was the bomb,--67 skewers, 12 of which were meatballs. A big hit with everyone and we will definitely repeat it in the future. One unexpected outcome was the way all the sides stood out. Maybe because the plates weren't swimming in pools of gravy and piles of sliced turkey. The butchery instructions were flawless and for my first time starting 48 hours in advance made the day of cooking a breeze. Total cook time on my 24" Bincho was slightly over an hour.
