Shishito Tsukune
I discovered shishito tsukune at Yakitori Totto, one of my top 3 Japanese spots (Izakaya) in the city. Skewered and grilled on a brazier, and served with a raw quail egg that’s broken and used as a dipping sauce, it’s a beautiful and fun dish to eat. Since I don’t own a grill I’ve instead used an oven and skipped the quail egg, though I highly recommend you try it if you come across some. Shishito peppers can be spicy with the seeds attached but aren’t when you remove them. Shishito tsukune are sweet and pair well with the teriyaki like flavor of the chicken meatballs.
Shishito tsukune
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 17 minutes
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Snack
- Cuisine: Japanese, Poultry
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1/2 pound ground chicken
- 1/2 medium onion (finely chopped)
- 1/2 thumb size ginger (peeled and grated)
- 1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 1/2 tablespoon sake
- 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 20–25 Shishito peppers (sliced in half lengthwise and seeded)
- For the Dipping/Brushing Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon sake
- 3 tablespoons mirin
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a pan over medium/high heat, add oil, ginger, garlic and onions. Cook until onions are transparent (about 3 minutes). Transfer mixture into a bowl and let cool (put in fridge or freezer to speed up the process.) When the mixture is room temperature, add ground chicken, sake, soy and salt . Mix well with your fingers (not for too long.)
- With a knife, spread a generous amount of the mixture on each piece of shishito pepper. Discard the rest or save for later (if I have any left, I’ll usually make mini burger patties or eat it on top of Japanese rice with ichimi and soy sauce). Lay each piece on a tray covered with aluminum foil (or parchment paper). Bake for 15-17 minutes, until chicken has cooked through. While shisihitos are cooking, make your sauce.
- Mix all the ingredients and microwave for 20-30 seconds (to melt the sugar). Take shishitos out of the oven and with a basting brush, dab the sauce over each piece. Put leftover sauce in a small bowl and serve next to shishito tsukune (people can use is as a dip).
Nutrition
- Calories: 421
- Saturated Fat: 2
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Absolutely in love with these things. Tsukune is great on its own, and so are shishito…. put them together and you’ve got the best, most elegently flavored stuffed green pepper (a dish I loathed as a kid). Thanks for the recipe 🙂