japanese skewers 日本串燒

Many Asian countries has skewers and they may be a bit different and yet similar from region to region. I had done some skewers in the past paying little attention to the techniques and the results were mixed at best. I then began to pay more attention during my travel, as well as cruising the internet and I discovered a few techniques. Unlike what we tend to do with shish kabob in the west, skewers in the East tends to have much smaller pieces of food. Some time they are smaller the size of the pinkies.

I recently began using this smallest bamboo skewers. They had been sitting in my kitchen drawer for a long time. When I first bought them I was quite uncomfortable with them thinking they were scaled down by the Chinese manufacturer to cut cost. As I gave it more thought I then realize their seeming diminished size are normal.


Skewers in many Japanese izakayas typically have very small pieces of food. Their small size make sthe food precious and one tends to savoy them. The point is not to stuff one's stomach but as a snack to accompany the alcohol (and smoke for some).

it is common to reuse the skewer sticks - aren't they beautiful?

When I built the skewer add-on (the angle iron skewer rest on the top picture) for the American made hibachi I made it for this bamboo sticks. These skewer sticks have a few attributes. The tips are quite sharp making it relatively easy to  pierce small and tough pieces of meat like chicken skin or intestine. (BTW, if you only want chicken meat you would be very disappointed in Japan as they prefer the innate of the fouls with their skewers) The rectangular cross section prevents the food from rotating so they can be cooked evenly. The most important is the flat handle, which not only make a nice handle when eating, it prevent the skewer from rotating when grilling. With these skewer the flat handle sits on the angle iron rest. As the the grilling progresses you flip it over so both sides are evenly cooked/charred. The technique typically involves flipping it over a number of times while you apply seasoning in the process until it is done. Typically one either use a dry seasoning mix, or a wet glazing that is sweeter. I generally prefer a hot and spicy dry seasoning.

see how they are nested side by side - very little waste during production

Putting small pieces of meat on them requires some zen concentration initially, so you don't pierce your finger, and to distribute the meat based on their size relative to the flame. Most important is to distribute the weight evenly so the skew would stay put on both sides. Very often one side turns out heavier than the other and I learnt to spot the pieces of meat that I can adjust so the skewer is balance.

Until I pay more attention, I used to burn the skewer sticks. The tricks to prevent this is all about attention to details:

1) distribute the perfect number of pieces of meat so the skewer is full with little gaps that exposes the bamboo to the flame.
2) put smaller pieces on two ends where the temperature is lower.
3) only put food that cooks at the same rate on the same skewer. Typically meat with meat, and vegetable with vegetable.
4) the angle iron on the skewer stick seats on on both ends shields the exposed bamboo from the flame.

If you pay attention to these you can reuse the skewer sticks a number of times and there is no need to soak them in water beforehand. Soaking them in water tends to cause sprinters which is unpleasant.