Kitchen Supper: Robata Thanksgiving

I used to call this Yakitori Thankgiving, but this is not entirely precise. 

Yakitori is just chicken, since Japanese restaurants often specialize in one kind of dish or protein. This meal has much more than chicken, and it’s the perfect make-ahead, non-traditional, chill Thanksgiving holiday that I want for myself and my family and friends. 

Usually we make tons of turkey and sides for Gobble Gobble Give, and we spend the morning, kids and all, serving food for people who need a Thanksgiving meal. This is terribly performative, but also so good for my kids to have to serve and be in service to other people. Thanksgiving is the only holiday that doesn’t revolve around their good time and so it’s a perfect time to show up for others. I want our kids to get that there are people who do not have the means to run to the store and put on a big meal for company. 

Then, we go home, chill, relax, and people come around 4pm. We fire up the bincho tan charcoal in the Japanese grills, create stations. I have everything skewered and ready to go, with all the sauces and tares. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked at one of these, aside from appetizers, because people love to jump on the grill and make the skewers. People sort of linger around the grills eating and drinking. It’s the perfect Thanksgiving for people who want to break from tradition, and also a great party idea because it’s fun, interactive and much of the work is make-ahead. 

I do apps for this, but mostly apps = insurance, a little nosh in case things go to hell on the grills and we need a little time to get things together. This hasn’t happened yet - that things have gone to hell - but I like having insurance at parties.

One of the markers of a veteran party thrower, versus a newbie, is the cadence of the meal, things coming in timely ways, no one waiting for food to show up, no one too drunk because the food is slow. There is an order. Calm. Ease even when it’s not easy.

My motto is: if it all goes to hell, laugh it off and order pizza! If the cook is calm, the party is calm. Stay chill.

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ANCHOR BOOK

I use the excellent Robata: Japanese Home Grilling by Silla Bjerrum as an anchor book for this meal. I have others, but the recipes in here are so good, you can make the whole party out of this book in different iterations and it comes out great every time.

This Thanksgiving will look like this:

INSURANCE (Appetizers)

• Panko-crusted ried yuzu tofu

• Miso-yuzu salmon bites in shiso leaves

• Steamed edamame

• Beef negimaki

• Tuna tataki with salsa verde

The apps I pre-prep and execute on the day. These can be passed around or put out on a table for people to serve themselves.

This is what all the pre-prepped skewers look like. Make day before, cover + store them in the fridge.

ROBATA

Drown your wooden skewers in water for an hour or so, and then thread your protein and veg onto the skewers, cover + refrigerate overnight.

Proteins:

• Chicken thighs

• Yuzu-miso pork belly

• Chicken skin

• Chicken Hearts

• King Prawns, heads on

• Pork Tskune Meatballs (use all your meat, seafood scraps + fat for this!)

• Bacon-wrapped quail egg lollis

• Salmon

Veg:

• Shoshito peppers

• Charred leeks

• King trumpets

• Cherry Tomatoes

Japanese Mountain Rice is chock full of “mountain vegetables”+ all kinds of mushrooms. People always love it. If I don’t have vegetarians/vegans, I cook it in chicken or turkey fat, sue me.

SIDES

• Japanese Mountain Rice

• Japanese slaw with a yuzu vinaigrette

CONDIMENTS

• Beet Pickles

• Pickled red onions

Things you’ll need:

• Skewers

• Bincho tan charcoal

• Yakitori grill or hibachi

• Water bottles of sake-mirin spray to tame the fire + add moisture

• Tare: A sauce made from chicken scraps (or sub with dashi for vegetarians. I make both) in boiling water, shiitakes, salt, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, mirin + sake + thickened with a little potato flour.

• Some recipes will have dipping sauces and such. They can be made the day before, covered and stored in the fridge.

Dessert (Like you need it):

I leave this up to the kids. Sometimes we do ice cream cones. Another year the kids made a croquet-en-bouche out of store-bought cream puffs. One year we did the Toasted Bincho Dust Marshmallows from the book, but they are too persnickety for the kids who just want dessert to be something they know and love. I find making the kids happy on the dessert always wins the day.

This year we will do smore’s in the fire pit. Because the children have spoken.

Last Thoughts.

In the past, I’ve tried to choose dishes for the menu that give guests a true experience of Robata, but I have long given that up.

Our house is not a Tokyo yakitori joint. This is fine.

Now, I do dishes that are do-able, that stand-up to sitting around, that are crowd-pleasing, that can handle amateur cooks who want to try their hand at the grill (Raffi, my 12-year-old and my bestie, Drew have been cooking together for years with other folks jumping in.)

This Thanksgiving, David, my friend LeAnne and I killed and processed two of my turkeys for the “yakitori.” I have adjusted the cooking + preparations since then. And a bunch of people not listed showed up. Also, of note: The cooking stains on the pages. LOL

If something doesn’t work, I make notes each year and it gets rotated out. The idea is fun, not me hiding in the kitchen, slammed. It is about making Thanksgiving our own tradition and not what other people tell us what we should do.

I also often do a secret dish for family and people who come to help, usually a secret tequila drink in the kitchen paired with a yuzu-drizzled lobster tail, which I will do again this year because David, Lucy and Edie love it so much.

And if Thanksgiving is hard, as holidays can be, know that a little grilling chaos and a casual sit wherever you like vibe, can be a relief from toxic family drama. Keep your head down. Take care of yourself. Laugh (or eye roll) what you can. Have fun.

Really, it’s supposed to be fun, not an endurance event.

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END NOTES: This is part of a now-free, but soon-to be-paid, Kitchen Suppers section, with do-able meals, recipes + strategies for inviting people into our lives.

Essays on Thursdays. Join us every Sunday for a new, easy-enough recipe worthy of inviting people over.

Thank you, as always, for cooking with me. xo