Tempura
A classic Japanese dish of deep fried vegetables or seafood. What differentiates tempura from other fried dishes is that the batter is relatively light, and the cooking emphasizes preserving the natural flavor of the ingredients. The ideal tempura should be crispy but light. There's definitely room for improvement for me, but I'm relatively happy with how this turned out.
Active Time: 30 min
Total Time: 30 min
Ingredients
> shrimp
> sweet potato
> green beans
> cake flour (1/2 cup)
> cold water (1/2 cup)
> egg (1)
> soy sauce (1 tbsp), mirin (1 tbsp), dashi (1 tbsp)
Instructions
1. Prep the shrimp. Peel and devein, making sure to keep the tail on. Chop off the end half of the tail shell. Gently score the inner surface of the shrimp to ensure that the shrimp doesn't curl up during cooking.
2. Prep the other ingredients: peel and chop the sweet potato into thin slices. Remove the ends of the green beans.
3. Make the batter: in a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg and cold water. Then sift in the cake flour. Using a couple of chopsticks as prongs, gently mix together the mixture, taking care to avoid overmixing.
4. Make the dipping sauce: mix together soy sauce, mirin, and dashi.
5. You are ready to fry! Coat each item with a small amount of flour (make sure to dust off any excess), then coat it with the batter, and gently place it in a pot of hot oil. Each item's cooking time will vary; I did about 4-5 minutes for the shrimp, 3-4 minutes for the green beans, and 6-8 minutes for the sweet potato.
6. For shrimp only, dip your chopsticks back into the flour and splash a few drops of batter into the oil. Some of it will adhere to the shrimp and lead to a more interesting texture.
7. Remove, let excess oil drain off, and cool slightly. Serve with dipping sauce and enjoy!
Notes/Tips:
> Feel free to use whatever ingredients you prefer to make the tempura! I used shrimp, sweet potato, and green beans because that's what I happened to have (plus, they're some of my favorite ingredients). There are many other things you can use though: most dense, uniform vegetables (squash, avocado, pumpkin, carrot, eggplant, etc), broccoli, really anything that wouldn't emit too much water when cooked.
> Make sure all of the ingredients that go into the batter are cold. Some recipes I've seen also use cold soda water; I presume that gives the batter a bit more of an airy texture and possibly leads to a crispier exterior.