Shrimp / Squid / Green pepper / Eggplant / Sweet potato / Potato / Cabocha (Japanese
pumpkin) / Carrot / Shiitake Mushrooms / Renkon (lotus roots)
Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura:
1. Prepare the ingredients. (Cut into 3/4 inch in thickness. *See Tip 5 and 6)
2. Make tempura batter.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a deep pan to 340-350F degree. (*See Tip 4)
4. Lightly dip ingredients in the batter and immediately fry them until brown. It takes
longer to fry vegetables than to fry seafood.
5. Drain tempura on a rack.
6. Serve right away with tentsuyu (tempura dipping sauce) or salt. Tempura is best
served hot. *Grated daikon radish is a common condiment.
Tips for Making Crispy Tempura:
Tip 1: Ice
Use ice water for the batter. This is really important to prevent the batter from absorbing
too much oil. (Do not make the batter ahead of time.)
Tip 2: Batter
Try not to over mix the batter and not to coat ingredients with the batter too much.
Tip 3: Frying Order
If you are frying both seafood and vegetables, fry vegetables first. Then, fry seafood. Fry
vegetables at 340F degree and fry seafood at 350F degree.
Tip 4: Oil Temperature
To check the temperature of frying oil, drop a little batter into the oil. If the batter comes
up right away instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan, it's about 360 F degree. If the
batter goes halfway to the bottom and comes up, it's about 340F degree. This is said to be
the right temperature to fry tempura.
Tip 5: Shrimp
Make a couple incisions on the stomach side of each shrimp so that it stays straight.
Then, pick it up by the tail and dip the body part in the batter. ( Tempura Shrimp Recipe)
Tip 6: Squid
Remove the thin skin and lightly flour it before dipping in tempura batter so that it won't
splash much.
Tempura Variations:
* Kakiage is round mixed tempura. To make kakiage, mix left over tempura batter and
thin strips or small pieces of several ingredients together. Take a scoop of the ingredients
in a large spoon and slip them to 340F degree oil. Make kakiage into your favorite size.
(Scallop Kakiage Recipe)
* Ten-don (Tempura Rice Bowl): Serve hot Japanese rice in a bowl. Dip tempura
lightly in tentsuyu sauce. Place the tempura on top of rice.
* Tempura Udon/ Tempura Soba: Boil udon noodles/soba noodles (the boiling time
varies depending on the types of noodles) and drain. Heat men-tsuyu in a pan and add the
udon/soba noodles. Serve the udon/soba noodle soup in a bowl. Place tempura on top of
the noodle soup.
Tentsuyu
(tempura dipping sauce)
Ingredients:
* 2 cup dashi soup stock
* 1/2 cup mirin
* 1/2 cup soy sauce
* 1 tbsp sugar
How to Cook:
* Mix all ingredients in a pan.
* Put the pan on high heat and bring the sauce to a boil.
* Cool the sauce.
Basic Tempura Batter
Ingredients:
* 1 egg
* 1 cup ice water
* 1 cup all purpose flour
How to Cook:
* Beat an egg in a bowl.
* Add ice water in the bowl.
* Add flour in the bowl and mix lightly.
*Makes 4 servings
**Be sure to use very cold water.
*** Do not overmix the batter.
Tempura Shrimp
Ingredients:
* 12 large shrimps
* 1 egg
* 1 cup ice water
* 1 cup all purpose flour
* Vegetable oil for frying
How to Cook:
* Peel shrimp and make a couple incisions on the stomach side so that it stays straight.
* Beat an egg in a bowl.
* Add ice water in the bowl.
* Add flour in the bowl and mix lightly.
* Heat oil to 350 F degree in a deep pan.
* Pick shrimp up by the tail and dip the body part in the batter.
* Fry it until brown.
*Makes 4 servings
**Be sure to use very cold water.
*** Do not overmix the batter.
No comments:
Post a Comment