Tsukune つくね - Two ways

Here are two recipes for making tsukune. One is tsukune soup and the other a tsukune burger. Both were inspired by my favorite yakitori restaurant Maido up in Kanazawa Bunko. 

On the left: Tsukune Leek soup from bunko-maido.com. On the right, tsukune at Maido Bunko.

The above photos are food creations from the professional - chef Suzuki - at Maido, Kanazawa Bunko. Photos showing my attempt at recreating them are down below.

Tsukune (pronounce tsue koo nay) is nothing more than ground meat with other ingredients added to make a meatball. Tsukune served at kushiyaki (more commonly referred to as yakitori) restaurants will nearly always be on the menu as "つくね" although it does have a kanji associated. The meat will be packed around a stick and then grilled. Some "tare" (ta ray) or sauce is usually added and then it's delivered to your table. Most of time it will be chicken but there are duck and meat varieties you'll come across as well.

(The kanji for tsukune is 捏ね which means to knead or mix)

Both of the recipes below will use the same tsukune meat. So here is how to make the tsukune meat. I've taken some tips from the master chef at Maido and gathered some ideas from others on cookpad.com, the #1 recipe site in Japan.

Tsukune ingredients

Tsukune meat recipe:
- Ground chicken (the package shown was 300g or about 2/3 of a pound)
- One egg white
- 1 Tbsp potato starch
- 1/2 carrot grated
- 1 to 2 tsp grated ginger
- chopped green onions (to your liking - photo shows about 2 Tbsp)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp dried seaweed flakes (package can be seen in the background) (Optional)
- 2 to 3 Tbsp panko or other bread crumbs
- 1 Tbsp cooking sake
- 1 tsp soy sauce

Mix all of the ingredients together. Chef Suzuki at Maido works the mix really well so that it starts to take on a pasty consistency. 

Tsukune

 I covered it an let it sit in the fridge for a while but if you're in a hurry you can proceed on.

Tsukune Leek Soup

Ingredients:
- Chicken broth 3-4 cups
- One leek
- Salt
- Pepper
- Cilantro or white celery sprigs

1. Cut the leek into one inch segments and skewer them. Cook over a grate until browned.

Grilled leaks

2. Bring the broth to a boil.

3. Form the tsukune meat into small meatballs and drop into the broth to cook. Turn the heat down to medium and cook the meatballs. I only made two servings of soup with about 3 meatballs in each.

Broth and the tsukune meatballs

4. Add the leaks and cook another few minutes.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Put in serving bowls and add the cilantro or white celery sprigs.

white celery sprigs

Finished product

Grilled Tsukune Patties

Ingredients:
- Tsukune meat (from above)

Sauce (basic teriyaki type sauce)
- Shoyu
- Cooking sake
- Mirin
- Sugar
The general ratio is equal parts of each. So use 2 Tbsp each to start. The sugar can be cut back a bit since mirin already has sugar in it. A little corn starch can be used as a thickener as desired.

Sake, Soy Sauce, and Mirin are often referred to as the holy trinity of Japanese cooking.
You'll find it over and over again in many recipes. Start typing it into Google and it will auto complete it for you.

1. Shape the tsukune into small patties.
2. Heat vegetable oil in pan (just enough to cook the patties)
3. Place the patties in a pan and cook over medium-high heat. Flip when golden brown. Finish cooking the other side and then remove.
4. Put the sauce ingredients into the pan and heat/stir. Be careful not to burn it. The sugars in the sauce make it highly conducive to burning.

Cook in vegetable oil

Flip and cook the other side

Tsukune "burgers"

tsukune soup and tsukune re-creation

 I served the tsukune just as is (plain) or with some shichimi - like you have available in most yakitori joints. You can see from the photo that I didn't use a lot of teriyaki sauce.

Both recipes turned out really well. An idea to make the broth clearer for the soup involves cooking the tsukune balls in a separate broth or steaming them. Then place them into the chicken broth that you'll be using to serve the soup.

Here is the Maido blog entry on making tsukune. He also makes duck tsukune so he discusses both the chicken and duck versions.

An ingredient he mentions using is "homemade red pepper garlic miso," which I able to research. It's probably a key ingredient and a secret to the wonderful taste of his tsukune.