The Meatwave

I don't look at the analytics for this site all that often, but whenever I do I'm reminded that one of the top entry searches is for "ground chicken skewers," which lands folks on this excellent chicken keema recipe. I make a mental note over and over again that I should probably do more ground chicken skewer recipes, but then ultimately forget. However, when I wanted to make some miso-seasoned chicken lately, ground chicken jumped to the top of my mind because I kind of wanted to emulate some miso meatballs that stole my heart, but also create something fairly unique at the same time. I got exactly that with these miso-seasoned ground chicken skewers finished with a soy-lime glaze.

While those meatballs leaned into miso heavily in the meat mixture and glaze, I wanted to go for a flavor profile with these skewers that still featured miso, but layered on more elements that would be discernible in the final dish. The way I achieved that was mainly through the glaze, which used soy sauce and lime juice to form a salty and citrusy base that was balanced with multiple sugars, had a slight heat from red pepper, and had a little miso in it, of course. After mixing all of those ingredients in a saucepan, I let everything simmer until it thickened up enough to be brush-able, which didn't take too long since there wasn't all that much liquid to begin with.

For the chicken mixture, I took notes from a tsukune recipe I developed a long time ago, which is where I learned how to make loose ground chicken firm up enough to hold its shape while being grilled. The solution isn't all that ground breaking, it's merely using enough binders to do the job, but you need more panko breadcrumbs in chicken than you would in most other meats, plus egg. Beyond the binders, I actually used a seasoning very similar to the tsukune, but included a fair amount of miso, which also ended up providing enough saltiness that no additional salt was needed.

Now skewering ground chicken is the trickiest part of this recipe. For beef, I would normally just form the meat around the skewer i n my hands, but chicken is not as firm and more sticky, and I've found it doesn't work in the same manner as beef. So instead, I form meat cylinders first on sheet pan or in large container. Having that vessel parchment-lined adds extra insurance to help prevent sticking too. Once I have the shape down, I then press the skewer into the meat and form and pinch close the chicken so the skewer is completely encased. It's not entirely necessary, but it can also be helpful to stick the skewers in the freezer at this point for the 15 to 20 minutes it takes to prep the grill—the extra firmness they pick up makes them that much easier to get from the tray to the grates.

Once they're on the grill though, things get easier from there. I often advocate for constant flipping of meats for the best sear and most even cooking, but in the case of these chicken skewers, they really need to be seared quite well on the first side before they release from the grates and can be turned easily without divorcing from the skewer. After that first side is done though, they can then be turned more easily at regular intervals, which is what I did here until the skewers were well seared all over and felt firm and cooked through.

At that point I brushed on the glaze all over and kept flipping the skewers now and then until the glaze was set, which just took a minute or two over direct heat.

I was attracted to those miso meatballs because of the savory depth they had, and these miso chicken skewers had that, but on steroids. The light touch of chicken really brought all the saltiness and savoriness of the miso and soy glaze to the forefront. It was strong and intense, but not so much that the distinct bite of white pepper, garlic, and ginger couldn't be tasted as well, with a touch onion in background too. I served these with some white rice, and that was definitely needed to temper the intensity of flavor here, but when taken altogether, these skewers were delivering on all their promise, leaving me smitten. They also were not just a reminder to get more ground chicken skewer representation on this site, but a calling cry to do so since I now have a method down and can really focus on seasoning experimentation, and the sky's the limit there.

Published on Thu Aug 10, 2023 by Joshua Bousel

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