Tsukune (Japanese Chicken Meatballs) つくね

Tsukune are my absolute favorite yakitori bar order and something I get multiple
times when I'm in Japan. This recipe is for home cooking and is adapted to use
the oven. An easy straightforward recipe for an almost authentic Japanese
Tsukune.

Servings: 12 skewers

Author:

Prep Time
10 minutes

Cook Time
25 minutes

Sauce Time
5 minutes

Total Time
40 minutes

Course:

Cuisine:

Japanese

Keywords:

Authentic Japanese Recipes Japanese Chicken Meatballs Tsukune Yakitori Tare

🧂 Ingredients

5 Chicken Thighs

bone in, skin on
1 Shallot

finely chopped
3 Green Onions

finely chopped
1 tbsp Potato Starch
1 Egg

plus more yolks for dipping
2 tbsp Water
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Mirin
2 tbsp Sugar

Instructions

1 In a small pan simmer together the yakitori tare ingredients until slightly
thickened, about 5 minutes. Set aside. Also at this point put your skewers in a
tray of water to soak.
2 Remove the chicken thighs from the bone and mince everything with a sharp knife.
Chop until you get something slightly more rough than ground.
3 Add the chicken thigh mince to a bowl along with the egg, potato starch, green
onion, shallot, and a pinch of salt. Knead everything together for quite a
while, around 10 minutes should do it. Treat it like kneading bread, you want to
knead for so long the mixture is sticky-tacky.
4 Preheat your oven to 225 Celsius. Oil your hands and shape the mixture into
elliptical cylinders. Run them through with two skewers and place on a silicone
mat lined baking tray.
5 Place the tray with the tsukune on the topmost rack of the oven and bake for 10
minutes. Remove, flip, and brush with the yakitori tare sauce. Place back in the
oven on a middle shelf and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove, flip, brush with
more yakitori tare, and place back on the topmost shelf for 5 minutes, or until
the sauce begins to caramelize.
6 Serve these tsukune with a raw egg yolk and some more chopped green onion. You
can also sprinkle a bit more coarse salt right on top.