If you’re a fan of Japanese cooking, or maybe would love to try and make a dish you’ve seen in your favourite anime series, then you would have probably heard of the popular Tempura!
What is tempura?
Tempura is a Japanese dish that consists of seafood or vegetables that have been battered and deep fried. This dish was inspired from the deep frying techniques that have been introduced by the Portuguese residing in Nagasaki during the 16th century. It is one of the first Japanese dishes that are mainly deep fried.
Well then, since we have the advantage of having a big variant of seafood in the mediterranean sea, let’s get cooking!
What you’ll need
For the batter:
- Cold or iced water: 200ml (to prevent the batter from absorbing too much oil)
- Plain flour: 100g
- Egg: 1
- Baking soda or baking powder: 1 teaspoon
- Corn starch: 2 tablespoons
- Olive oil
- Optional: any spices you would like to add some personal flavor!
For the frying:
- Thin slices of vegetables: you may use carrots, onions, bell peppers or potatoes
- Or your favourite seafood: you may use peeled shrimp, squid or crab
- Vegetable oil
Let’s get started! はじめましょう !
1. First of all, mix in the flour, baking soda and starch together.
2. Next, crack the egg into a separate bowl and beat it, right after that add in your icy water.
Important note: You need to make your batter as light as possible. And that is by not over mixing the ingredients for the batter; you would want it to be somehow lumpy so that it would give you the perfect crispy touch. It’s also better to make the batter right before frying the tempura, so I wouldn’t recommend making it a long time ahead of the frying.
3. Put your oil into a frying pan and heat it up.
Important nnote: Best temperature condition is to drop some batter into your oil and see if it sinks halfway through then pops up nicely on the surface, if it sinks to the bottom or raises immediately to the top and wont sink at all, the temperature might be either too low or too high.)
4. Next, coat your seafood or vegetables into the tempura batter and then drop them into the frying oil, carefully fry one side and then flip it to its other side. Once it turns golden, you’re good to take it off the oil.
Important note: If you are making vegetable tempura, then the frying time will be best for around 1 minute on each side of your ingredient. And if you are frying seafood, you need to fry them as quickly as 20 seconds per side.
And voilà! You have successfully obtained your crispy tempura!
Jnaina Benaissa
JET Press Team
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