Japan / Main
Tempura
Vegetables and prawns in an ice-cold lumpy batter. Whisking it smooth is exactly what must not happen.
Ingredients
- Large prawns12
- Sweet potato, aubergine, pumpkin, pepper, sliced500 g
- Plain flour150 g
- Cornflour50 g
- Egg, cold1
- Iced water250 ml
- Dashi for the sauce200 ml
- Soy sauce50 ml
- Mirin50 ml
- Grated daikonto taste
- Oil for frying1 l
Quantities are auto-calculated from the original recipe as a guide. Items without numbers (e.g. “to taste”) are not changed.
Method 6 steps
Score the prawns three times on the inner curve and straighten them slightly, so they do not curl into rings in the oil.
Combine the dashi, soy and mirin, bring them to the boil and take them off: this is tentsuyu. Serve it with grated daikon.
Heat the oil to 180 °C. Only when it is ready do you mix the batter — not before.
Beat the cold egg into the iced water, tip in the flour and cornflour and stir with chopsticks for five or six strokes. Leave the lumps.
Dust the pieces in dry flour, dip them in the batter and lower them in three or four at a time. Fry ninety seconds to two minutes.
Drain on a rack, never on paper. Between batches skim the floating scraps of batter out of the oil: they burn and taint the flavour.
