What is Tempura?

Tempura is a traditional Japanese fried dish, commonly consisting of seafood and vegetables that are lightly battered and deep fried and served with salt or dipping sauce.

Contents:

• What is Tempura?
• How to make a Tempura Batter? (Tempura Batter Recipe)
• Let crisp flowers bloom with the batter, Ebi (Shrimp) Tempura
• The Easy Way To Check The Oil Temperature
• Tempura Recipe
• Easy Tempura Recipe with Tempura Flour
• Kakiage Tempura Recipes

What is Tempura?

While many first encounter tempura as an ingredient for sushi rolls, or as a side dish in a Japanese bento lunch, tempura is actually a highly specialized cuisine. In Japan, tempura restaurants often only serve tempura, and diners can enjoy omakase style (chef’s choice), just as they do at sushi bars. At those tempura restaurants, every element of tempura is carefully selected, from seasonal vegetables to the fish, flour, and frying oils. Sometimes there are a few frying stations with a different oil in each, because each ingredient cooks best at a particular temperature and some oils are more suitable to high temperatures, while others for lower temperatures. When it’s made well, tempura is light and crispy, never greasy, and always delicious.

There are a few different types of Japanese fried food, such as karaage (Japanese fried chicken), katsu (breaded cutlet), and tempura. What makes tempura different from other fried foods? The answer is its batter. Karaage often uses a dry potato flour to coat the chicken before frying. Katsu uses layers of dry flour, egg wash and dry breadcrumbs, and tempura uses a wet batter of flour, eggs and water, similar to fritters. Typically tempura is seafood and vegetables, but meat can be battered and served as tempura as well. The current form of Japanese tempura actually derived from Europe, mainly Portugal. In the 16th century, there was a dish called “Nagasaki tempura” in the southern part of Japan. Ingredients were dipped in a wet batter made with sugar, salt and sake, and deep fried in lard. When the eastern part of Japan picked up this dish, they switched lard with a vegetable based oil and fried more vegetables and seafood to better suit the Japanese diet. That was the beginning of tempura in Japan. The word “tempura” comes from the Portuguese “tempero,” which means to cook.

How to make a Tempura Batter? (Tempura Batter Recipe)

Tempura can be a fancy omakase meal or a dish cooked at home just like those served in every Japanese household. All you need is some oil and tempura batter; there’s no need for a fancy restaurant setting. With a few tricks and a recipe for tempura batter, you can easily have a great family tempura feast at home. Just make sure the tempura batter is light and fluid, and the texture shouldn’t resemble pancake batter.

Here’s a basic recipe for a foolproof tempura batter!

Let crisp flowers bloom with the batter, Ebi (Shrimp) Tempura

From a casual stand-alone noodle shop to a fancy Japanese-style restaurant, tempura is one of the most commonly eaten dishes in Japan. Here in the U.S., tempura is also one of the best-known Japanese dishes, along with sukiyaki. Tempura is a great way to enjoy seasonal foods, with the light, crispy texture of the batter.

Cooking tempura may seem quite simple, but it requires correct techniques to achieve the right crispiness. It’s not an exaggeration to say that being able to create perfectly crisp tempura can earn one a whole new level of respect as a chef. There are certain techniques to make the tempura look bigger and the batter crispier, as described figuratively by the phrase “let the flowers bloom”.

We are featuring shrimp tempura, which is one of the most classic types of tempura. We’ll let you know how to deep-fry shrimp while keeping it straight, and to make crisp flowers bloom with the batter.

First, the quality of frying oil is a determining factor in the aroma of your tempura. At tempura restaurants they use their own specially blended oils made with sesame oil, cottonseed oil, etc. At home, vegetable oil is commonly used, but adding a small amount of sesame oil will significantly improve the result.

Use caution while deep-frying shrimp. A rapid increase in the temperature of the shrimp can cause the air or water (vapor) trapped underneath the batter to explode, resulting in hot-oil spattering. When using tail-on shrimp, the shrimp needs to be prepared prior to deep-frying. Black tiger shrimp are excellent for making tempura because they’re tasty and can be purchased at reasonable price.

The Easy Way To Check The Oil Temperature

Drop a few droplets of the batter into the oil. If the batter bits come to the surface right away, the oil is ready. You can also check by placing a long cooking chopstick into the oil. If you see tiny bubbles coming off the tip, the oil is ready.

Place shrimp tempura on top of rice and pour sauce over it to make shrimp tendon (tempura rice bowl). You can also place shrimp tempura atop your ordinary soba or udon noodles to turn them into extraordinary dishes. You can make these dishes even more gorgeous if you use the shrimp tempura with “crisp flowers”. Why not upgrade this year’s toshikoshi soba (year-crossing noodles) to shrimp tempura soba?

Generally, tempura is eaten with either tentsuyu (tempura dipping sauce) or salt. The perfect condiments for tentsuyu are daikon oroshi (grated daikon radish). Momiji oroshi (grated daikon radish with red pepper) and grated fresh ginger root.

Try tempura with a blend of salt, pepper and yuzu powder. Dilute one part Nijiya Tsuyu Tennen with three parts water to make a delicious dipping sauce.

Tempura Recipe

Easy Tempura Recipe with Tempura Flour

Freshly-fried tempura is delicious. Let us make tasty tempura by using Nijiya’s organic tempura flour.
The secrets to making good tempura are as follows:

• Keep all the ingredients cold. When cold water is used in the batter, it fries nice and crispy. It’s even more effective if carbonated water is used.
• Fold in the flour and water quickly. If you over-mix the batter, it gets sticky and heavy.
• Monitor the oil temperature continuously while you fry. The rule of thumb is 320°F for leafy greens and 338°F to 356°F for other vegetables, fish, and kakiage (mixed ingredients). When ingredients are put into the frying pan all at once, the cooking temperature drops. The amount of tempura frying at the same time should occupy no more than half the space in the pan.

Keep these tricks in mind before you start cooking so that you will be able to make delicious tempura without wasting time.

Kakiage Tempura Recipes

Let’s Cook Kakiage with Seasonal Vegetables!

The real thrill of kakiage (Japanese fritter, a type of tempura) is that crunchy sensation when you bite into the hot, right-out-of-the-oven fritter filled with vegetables and seafood.

The appeal of kakiage tempura is that you can combine a variety of ingredients and deep fry them together. The tasty morsels entertain you with their crusty texture, appetizing aroma, and delicious flavor. The term “kakiage” is said to have come from kakimazeru and ageru, which respectively mean “mix together” and “deep fry” in Japanese. People in olden times must have enjoyed making kakiage by mixing together ingredients and batter. The basic process of making kakiage is to shape a mixture of ingredients and batter into small pieces and then deep fry them in oil. It is said that a tempura chef has passed the test once he or she learns to make kakiage well, because it is extremely difficult to perfectly adjust the amount and consistency of the batter, the oil temperature, deep-frying time, etc., as well as to choose the right ingredients and skillfully combine them with the batter. Normally it requires a high level of skill and many years of experience to make proper kakiage.

In this issue we’ll teach you the tips for making kakiage to help you become an instant tempura chef.

You can make various shapes of kakiage by making the batter and ingredient mixture thick or thin. (Thick pieces are generally more difficult to fry.) The three key points are as follows:

• Bind the ingredients together using the batter.
• Be sure the center is cooked properly, without burning the outside.
• Deep fry to a crunchy texture by keeping an appropriate amount of moisture in the batter.

The batter at the center doesn’t directly touch the oil and is only steamed. To facilitate this steaming process, add slightly more egg than you normally would when making batter so that the batter becomes spongy. When eggs breaks down due to heat, it generates carbonic acid gas that opens holes in the batter to create a texture like that of a steamed cake. Don’t overheat the oil, because if the temperature is too high the batter won’t stay together. It will scatter easily and the dispersed pieces will quickly harden. Deep fry the batter slowly at a temperature of about 320°F.

Now, let’s try making thick pieces of kakiage that are generally difficult to make, as mentioned above. You can use any leftover ingredients you have at home, as well as any pantry staples. So, let’s get started!

Variation of Kakiage Tempura

You can change the topping to enjoy many different types of kakiage tempura. Why not master “basic kakiage” and then try creating your original kakiage variations?

Gochiso Magazine, Nijiya Market