Torisashi

01 / ABOUT THE DISH

About the dish

Torisashi is raw chicken sashimi, made by slicing chicken meat that's sometimes only been lightly seared on the exterior, while the interior remains pink, making most of us fear for our lives. The name of this notorious dish is a compound – tori means bird or chicken , while sashi refers to sashimi. In the Kagoshima prefecture, torisashi has a cult-like following, and it's usually served with ground ginger or mirin-sweetened soy sauce on the side. In other parts of the country, these pink slices of chicken are accompanied by sesame seeds, salt, green onions, or wasabi. Many parts of the chicken are used for torisashi - hearts, gizzards, breasts, thighs, and liver. The chickens are slaughtered in a specific way and immediately refrigerated so that no salmonella-causing bacteria can appear on the meat. If you finally decide to tick torisashi off your bucket list after all of this, you can find it in numerous izakaya bars.