Yakitori Kawa (皮, chicken skin)

Chicken skin makes some cooks nervous. I understand it. Raw, it looks like something the butcher forgot to tidy away. On the grill, treated properly, it becomes one of yakitori's plainest pleasures: crisp edges, soft pockets, salt, and the good smell of chicken fat meeting charcoal.

The one detail that decides kawa is patience. If the heat is too fierce, the outside burns before the fat has time to render. Grill it more slowly, turning often, and the skin tightens, shrinks, and bastes itself as the fat drips away. You are not trying to hide it under tare. For kawa shio, salted chicken skin, the skin must taste like itself.

Pleat the strips tightly on the skewer, almost like folding cloth. That gives the skin height, protects it from drying into brittle scraps, and makes small ridges that crisp one by one. This is honmono yakitori at home: not difficult, only unfamiliar, and very honest about what is in front of you.