Potato-Prosciutto Yakitori Recipe

A Japanese small plate that is on the hearty side.

 

Think of Yakitori as a kind of Japanese small plate, featuring a huge variety of meat, seafood, and vegetarian selections grilled over a special Yakitori grill which has no grates. You can mimic this experience in your kitchen if you have an indoor grill, and it's a ton of fun for company, as you serve them one small plate after another, hot off the grill. That's why I consider Yakitori a true dining adventure. See here for more information on the overall Yakitori experience.

Potato yakitori is one of the plainer yakitori small plates, but it makes a nice filler between richer courses, and is extremely simple to make. As with asparagus, the real way to do this is to buy pork belly, partially freeze it, slice it extremely thin, and wrap it around the potato. As they say, "ain't gonna happen"! We just use prosciutto (Italian cured ham that is pre-sliced super-thin) and it works great.


TOTAL TIME: 40 min

  • Prep: 30 min

  • Cook: 10 min

YIELD:   10 Skewers

LEVEL:  Easy

 

 


Ingredients

  • 15 new potatoes

  • 10 wood skewers

  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

  • Salt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directions

Soak the bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes.

Boil the potatoes in water until cooked through.

Slice the potatoes in half. 

Wrap each potato half with prosciutto. Once around is good enough, so you may be able to wrap several potato halves with one piece of prosciutto.

Skewer the potatoes, 2 or 3 halves per skewer.

Grill on medium-high or high heat, flipping as necessary, until the prosciutto is lightly browned.

Remove from grill and serve with lemon and togarashi spice. To eat, squirt lemon over the potatoes and then dip them in spice.


More Photos

You can buy prosciutto at Costco, as well as many supermarkets. The best prosciutto comes from the Parma region of Italy, hence "Prosciutto di Parma". If you have any left over, eat it plain, or wrap it around a slice of melon for a traditional Italian side dish.

Prosciutto comes pre-sliced, extremely thin. The slices are typically separated by wax paper.

Togarashi "7-pepper" spice is good stuff. You can find it in Asian markets or even on Amazon.