Yakitori

Yakitori is the frozen snack that ends up doing double duty: it can be a small appetizer, or a quick chicken skewer for a fast meal. By our assessment, its strength is convenience of the skewer format, especially when the kitchen needs something that can go from freezer to plate with little fuss. The cost is that frozen chicken skewers are never as lively as fresh ones, and the glaze or seasoning has to do a lot of the work. In practice it is the sort of food that lives on a tray or in a pan, not on ceremony. It sits squarely in the frozen starters-and-snacks aisle rather than among full mains, which makes the category label useful. The item name is plain enough, and the odd digits in it are catalogue marks, not part of the dish.