Sauce for Yakitori

This post is really more about the sauce than the yakitori.
Get as much chicken breast or boned chicken thigh as everybody is likely to eat.
Japanese naganegi (like a round leek) if available.
Cut meat into cubes a bit bigger than 1/2” and thread onto skewers, alternating with chunks of leek on some skewers. Leave enough room to hold the end of the skewer.
Grill, preferably over charcoal, and when a little charring is evident, pick up several skewers at a time and dip into the sauce below, allow excess to drip off a little and return to grill. Repeat until done.
Some skewers should be grilled just with salt, without sauce.

Tare or Sauce There are easier ways to make tare, but this is particularly tasty, and has a good consistency without being floury.
trimmings from chicken
ml mirin
ml soy sauce
2 spring onions, or green half of negi or dividing onion
chili pod
garlic clove
g demerara or raw sugar

Chicken trimmings - ideally about 4 wingtips, but any chicken part with plenty of skin, cartilege, and bone, but not much fat, is perfect.
Grill chicken trimmings and onion until some browning shows.
Bring mirin, soy sauce, garlic, and dried chili to the boil.
Stir in sugar.
Add chicken and onion.
Simmer for around 30 minutes - a larger batch will take around 2 hours to achieve a slightly gelatinous syrupy texture and plenty of chicken flavor.

Cool and store in a narrow glass jar - ready for dipping skewers of grilled chicken in.
Boil up "tare" after every use, and strain and add remaining tare to any new batch that you make up.

Chicken Simmered in Vinegar & Soy

I think this may be based on a Filipino adobo. Serves 4 as a main or about 10-20 as an appetizer/bento dish. This is good warm, but also great cold - the lack of oil means that it is not greasy, and the vinegar cooks to a slight but uncloying sweetness.

1-2 dried chilis
Several slices ginger
Bayleaf or two.
1 star anise if you want a more Chinese flavor.
1-3 cloves of garlic
2 T Chinese shaohsing rice wine or Japanese sake
1/3 c soy sauce
1/2 c rice vinegar or mild vinegar
1 kg chicken wings, wingsticks, or drumlets

Douse chicken in boiling water and drain.
Lay neatly in pan in a single layer.
Pour over about vinegar, soy sauce, Chinese wine or sake, and a few spoonsful of water so that liquid comes at least halfway up chicken pieces.
Sprinkle liberally with paprika (improves color, omit if you don't have any).
Add garlic cloves.
Add several slices of fresh ginger.
Add spices.
Use a drop-lid or cover roughly with silicon paper, and simmer for 1-2 hours (good crockpot dish if you are willing to move to a pan and reduce the liquid for about 30 minutes at the end, and works well in a pressure cooker too).

Shoyu-jiru (Soup with Shoyu base)

Shoyu-jiru is a northern thing. I've been comparing different versions, and decided that I prefer a straight shoyu broth, with no sake or mirin. Since this is a clear soup, it's surprisingly colorful and cheery. No tricks, just simmer away!

Broth:

4 c (800 ml) konbu or niboshi dashi or water (water is fine if you are going to use chicken or satsuma-age/chikuwa etc.)

2 T shoyu (taste before serving, you may prefer a little more)

Stuff to go in the soup...you should have a hearty bowl of bits and pieces, just covered with broth:

Daikon

Carrot

Konnyaku - I like it cubed for this dish

Fu (gluten): use slices of fried fresh fu (abura-fu) if you can get it, or sheets of pressed fu or other dried fu, soaked in warm water about 10 mins, then squeezed dry and sliced.

Seasonal and optional items:

Chicken pieces (or less traditional but useful, chikuwa)

Sweet potato (soak slices or cubes in water and rub in the water to loosen surface starch - color will be much brighter when cooked)

Burdock root (gobo)

wakegi or Dividing onions such as naga-negi

Greens: komatsuna or chingen-sai - best added at the end, to retain bright color.

Sato-imo - peel thickly and parboil in one or two changes of water before adding to soup.

Eggplant - tends to look awful in miso-soup, but is fine in shoyu broth!

Grilled mochi turns this soup into a regional o-zouni for New Year.

Toppings - finely chopped negi in winter, myouga in summer.