The tsukune is a Japanese chicken meatball whose flavour can accompany many dishes. You'll find it, for example, garnishing a poke bowl, bathing in a ramen, or in oden broths.
But if you want to fully enjoy these meatballs, it's in their yakitori form, on a skewer, that you'll discover all the gustatory virtues of this meat-based preparation.
How about making our own tsukune meatballs to bring a touch of originality to our barbecues this summer?
Tsukune meatball recipe
👥 serves 2
🥣 15 min preparation
🕒 10 min cooking
Ingredients
800 g chicken
1 onion
2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
6 tbsp cornflour
3 tsp sesame oil
2 eggs
salt
Method
- Roughly chop the chicken
- Finely chop the onion
- Mix the onion, sesame oil, ginger, egg, salt, cornflour and chicken until you get a sticky mixture
- Cover and chill for 10 minutes
- Put some sesame oil on your hands
- Shape the meatballs by rolling them in your hands
- Put the meatballs on skewer sticks
- Sear the skewers for about 4 minutes on each side on the barbecue
Find the full recipe on OhMonBento.
Even more indulgence?
You'll undoubtedly be completely won over by the taste of these skewers delicately grilled on the barbecue, but you can decide to dress them up, notably with sauce.
Of course, we won't give up dipping them in soy sauce — sweet or salty, as you like. But why not extend the journey to the Japanese archipelago by preparing more original sauces?
- Tare sauce
It's the sauce par excellence to accompany yakitori. Even if it resembles sweet soy sauce, it's denser and prepared differently. It's made notably of soy sauce, dashi, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, etc.
- Ponzu sauce
This sauce is used more like a condiment, a kind of vinegar, but it'll add a pep to your dish. And for good reason: the base of its preparation is citrus. To make it, you'll need, among other things, Japanese sour citrus fruits such as sudachi, yuzu, kabosu, etc.
And for more heat, nothing stops you from placing a dab of wasabi on the corner of your plate. Enjoy your meal!
Photo credit: Flickr - Kirk K
