Yakitori no Tare (焼き鳥のたれ, grilled chicken glaze)

A good yakitori tare is quiet in the pot and persuasive at the fire. It looks like four ordinary things: shōyu, mirin, sake, and sugar. Then heat removes the raw edge, the surface thickens, and the sauce begins to cling. People make a mystery of this jar, as people do when a simple thing has been done well for a long time.

The one detail that decides it is reduction. Stop too soon and the tare runs off the chicken into the coals. Push it too far and it turns salty, sticky, and a little mean. You want a thin glaze that coats the back of a spoon and closes slowly when you draw a finger through it. Remember that it thickens as it cools, so don't cook it until it looks finished in the pan. By then you've gone past it.

Yakitori belongs to the method, not the menu: small pieces of good chicken, skewered neatly, grilled close to the heat, seasoned either with salt or with tare. The sauce doesn't hide tired meat. It gives a soy-dark gloss to chicken that was worth grilling in the first place, and it should be brushed on late because sugar burns before the meat is done. We ask the fire to set the glaze, not to punish it.

About the old jar by the grill: yes, the tare deepens as it is used and refreshed. At home, keep the master jar clean and pour only what you need into a small basting cup. The brush cup has touched chicken, so it doesn't go back into the jar unless it is boiled hard and strained first. Honmono is not careless. It is the real thing handled with clear eyes.