Combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside. If you don't have corn syrup, you can use sugar instead.

Finely chop the onion, shiso leaves, and ginger. Crumble the tofu into small pieces by hand in a bowl. Add the ground chicken and all the ingredients marked with ★ to the bowl.

Mix well with your hands until the mixture becomes sticky. Then shape into balls.

Remove the skin and fat from the chicken breast and cut into large chunks. Set up the food processor with the metal blade and add the chicken.

Pulse a few times, then process for 10 seconds until coarsely chopped.

Add all the ingredients marked with ★. Roughly chop the ginger and onion with a knife, and tear the shiso leaves by hand before adding.

Pulse a few times, then process for 5 seconds. Use a spatula to mix for even blending.

Process again for 3–5 seconds. When the mixture is evenly combined and sticky, it's ready.

Wet your hands and shape the mixture into balls about this size. For reference, each ball is about 0.9 oz (25 grams).

You should get about 25 pieces.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan. Add the tsukune balls, cover, and cook over medium-low heat for 4 minutes.

Flip them over; they should be nicely browned.

Gently press down on each with a spatula to flatten the bottoms. Cover again and cook over medium-low heat for another 3 minutes.

Once cooked, remove the tsukune from the pan.

In the same pan, add the prepared sauce and bring to a boil.

Return the tsukune to the pan and coat both sides with the sauce.

Tilt the pan to coat all the tsukune evenly. When the sauce thickens and the tsukune are glossy, they're done.

For a yakitori restaurant-style presentation, skewer 2–3 tsukune on each bamboo skewer. Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi or serve with egg yolk for dipping, if you like.

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