The flight to Tokyo is a long one but as soon as I get to the hotel, I walk a few blocks to Masuya Shibadaimon, an izakaya in Minato City. Downstairs is a counter and a few tables with a five-foot Japanese metal charcoal grill and a chef with a rolled up green and white bandana over his forehead to absorb sweat. I always eat upstairs, a small, noisy room where beer and skewered foods abound.

In Japan, every part of the chicken is served. I’ve eaten most everything but the beak, from skewered grilled hearts, crunchy cartilage and succulent tsukune (meatballs) to what was described to me as ovaries, or unfertilized eggs, which looked like a constellation of translucent orange orbs and tasted exorbitantly rich.

Negima, a simple skewer of chicken thigh and scallion, is what I enjoy most. Crisp, bites of fatty skin, juicy meat and bittersweet scallion - three bites of perfect grilled chicken best chased with an ice-cold Asahi before ordering another round.

Negima are served plain outside of fine-ground white pepper and a swipe of an all-purpose glaze called tare, made from equal parts soy sauce, mirin and sake. But there’s a secret to izakaya tare: it’s continuously microdosed with cooking fat and juices transferred from the basting brush to the pot as it’s dunked in and out to baste the skewers. Like a sourdough starter, a tare can be decades old and taste of its environs, making each unique to the izakaya or yakitori.

Negima are easy to make at home, though take some patience to skewer the ribbons of meat and short lengths of scallion. Boneless chicken thighs are convenient, though I’d recommend boning out skin-on thighs for a closer rendition to the real deal (a valuable skill). Grill or broil, cook’s choice; in Japan they use binchotan charcoal, a lump charcoal that produces a ton of heat. (A small Japanese hibachi grill, also referred to as a konro grill, is great for skewers.)

At Milk Street, we enhance a basic tare with dried shiitake, garlic, ginger and brown sugar. Simmer, then strain the solid bits (add to your rice—it’s delicious). The flavor of the soy sauce is central to tare, so choose a real, fermented brand since many supermarket brands are chemically processed and caramel colored. I make a double batch to flavor roast chicken, noodles, and stir fries.

Matthew Card

Matthew Card is Milk Street’s Creative Director for Recipes and Products, resident coffee geek, knife collector and equipment junkie. He has 25-plus years of professional cooking, recipe development, food writing and teaching under his belt. When he’s not in the Milk Street kitchen or on the road hunting for new recipes and ideas, Matthew lives with his family in Canberra, Australia, where he does his best to dodge kangaroos on his mountain bike and is learning to love Vegemite.