Tempura Recipes and Notes
I've written several times about cooking tempura, a Japanese food consisting of deep fat fried vegetables and meat which are dipped in a savory sauce and eaten over rice. The process keeps evolving for us, and I'm recording here its most current iteration, especially in the recipes at the end.
Assemble a variety of vegetables and some meat, cutting each food into pieces that are thin enough to fry fairly quickly and small enough in size to fit into the dipping bowls you will use at each individual place at the table. The pieces should not be so small, however, that frying them individually will become too tedious. Any or all of the following foods can be used:
Vegetables:
Green beans (ends removed and left whole)
Sweet potatoes or butternut-type squash (peeled and sliced thinly)
Onions (sliced--keep slices together rather than separating into rings)
Sweet peppers (slice "slabs" off the sides of the peppers)
Zucchini or other tender-skinned summer squash (slice into rounds without peeling)
Okra (leave whole)
Eggplant (peel and slice--if the Japanese type of eggplant, slice diagonally)
Mushrooms (leave whole if not too large, or slice in half or fourths lengthwise if very large)
Other vegetables--less common traditionally
Broccoli (cut into reasonable sections)
Cauliflower (separated into florets)
Corn kernels (formed into a clump by mixing with batter. We've eaten this in a restaurant.)
Whole (or stemmed and seeded) hot peppers
Meat
Chicken (probably breast meat)
Pork (probably tenderloin)
Shrimp (peeled and sand vein removed)
We also dipped and fried chunks and sticks of cheese--not traditional in Japan at all, but very good
****
Hiromi has now approved the following recipes for "public consumption." We served it to several groups during the past week.
Dipping Batter Recipe
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
2 Tablespoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Liquid ingredients:
3/4 cup ice water
2 Tablespoons vinegar
Keep all ingredients very cold before final mixing, and during use for dipping.
Sift dry ingredients together or mix thoroughly. Pour liquid into chilled bowl and then add dry ingredients. With whisk, press flour mixture into liquid, doing so repeatedly only until very little dry material remains. It will be very lumpy. This is ideal. Mix batter as little as possible.
Place batter bowl into larger bowl of ice water.
Work in fairly small batches (I've never more than doubled the recipe), since the batter eventually will smooth out and become less airy during frying if it sets too long without being used up.
Tempura Dipping Sauce (or Soup)
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon dashi*
2 Tablespoons soy sauce (We always use Kikkomen brand)
2 Tablespoons mirin**
*Dashi: Powdered Japanese soup base
**Sweet rice wine, used only for cooking
Cook together the first three ingredients briefly and then add mirin. Serve while still hot in individual small dipping bowls, starting with about 1/4 cup servings.
Rice
We cooked Japanese rice in electric rice cookers, using the measurements indicated in the cooking pot. (It comes to a ratio of about 1 cup rice to 1 1/4 cup water.) The rice is short-grain glutinous white rice. Botan or Kokuho Rose are brands we like. This kind, when eaten from a rice bowl held close to the mouth, can be eaten with chopsticks. American long-grain rice, eaten from a plate, wouldn't work at all for chopsticks.
Frying
Heat oil to at least 360 degrees. With tongs or cooking chopsticks, dip food into batter and slip into hot oil. Fry for only several minutes (till tender), and then remove and drain on paper towels and distribute while hot to those seated at the table.
Notes
If the oil is very fresh and unused, very little browning may occur, even when the food is well-cooked.
This is slow food--literally. Nearly all the cooking is done while people are already at the table. Hiromi often fries--all at once--one kind of food--enough for each person at the table to have one piece, and then switches to another food for the next round. After he's worked through the variety of offerings, he takes requests for whatever is still desired.
***
Our small group at church numbers about 37 people, including several families with small children. We served tempura to most of them last night, utilizing the help of other families in assembling and cooking the meal. We provided the batter, dipping sauce, and rice for everyone. We were part of one of three cooking groups, each of which supplied a fryer, oil, and meat and vegetables, and some cooking utensils and serving dishes for their group.
We used to think it would never work to cook tempura for this size group. Now we know it can be done--but not without a lot of cooperation from a lot of people.
Assemble a variety of vegetables and some meat, cutting each food into pieces that are thin enough to fry fairly quickly and small enough in size to fit into the dipping bowls you will use at each individual place at the table. The pieces should not be so small, however, that frying them individually will become too tedious. Any or all of the following foods can be used:
Vegetables:
Green beans (ends removed and left whole)
Sweet potatoes or butternut-type squash (peeled and sliced thinly)
Onions (sliced--keep slices together rather than separating into rings)
Sweet peppers (slice "slabs" off the sides of the peppers)
Zucchini or other tender-skinned summer squash (slice into rounds without peeling)
Okra (leave whole)
Eggplant (peel and slice--if the Japanese type of eggplant, slice diagonally)
Mushrooms (leave whole if not too large, or slice in half or fourths lengthwise if very large)
Other vegetables--less common traditionally
Broccoli (cut into reasonable sections)
Cauliflower (separated into florets)
Corn kernels (formed into a clump by mixing with batter. We've eaten this in a restaurant.)
Whole (or stemmed and seeded) hot peppers
Meat
Chicken (probably breast meat)
Pork (probably tenderloin)
Shrimp (peeled and sand vein removed)
We also dipped and fried chunks and sticks of cheese--not traditional in Japan at all, but very good
****
Hiromi has now approved the following recipes for "public consumption." We served it to several groups during the past week.
Dipping Batter Recipe
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
2 Tablespoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Liquid ingredients:
3/4 cup ice water
2 Tablespoons vinegar
Keep all ingredients very cold before final mixing, and during use for dipping.
Sift dry ingredients together or mix thoroughly. Pour liquid into chilled bowl and then add dry ingredients. With whisk, press flour mixture into liquid, doing so repeatedly only until very little dry material remains. It will be very lumpy. This is ideal. Mix batter as little as possible.
Place batter bowl into larger bowl of ice water.
Work in fairly small batches (I've never more than doubled the recipe), since the batter eventually will smooth out and become less airy during frying if it sets too long without being used up.
Tempura Dipping Sauce (or Soup)
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon dashi*
2 Tablespoons soy sauce (We always use Kikkomen brand)
2 Tablespoons mirin**
*Dashi: Powdered Japanese soup base
**Sweet rice wine, used only for cooking
Cook together the first three ingredients briefly and then add mirin. Serve while still hot in individual small dipping bowls, starting with about 1/4 cup servings.
Rice
We cooked Japanese rice in electric rice cookers, using the measurements indicated in the cooking pot. (It comes to a ratio of about 1 cup rice to 1 1/4 cup water.) The rice is short-grain glutinous white rice. Botan or Kokuho Rose are brands we like. This kind, when eaten from a rice bowl held close to the mouth, can be eaten with chopsticks. American long-grain rice, eaten from a plate, wouldn't work at all for chopsticks.
Frying
Heat oil to at least 360 degrees. With tongs or cooking chopsticks, dip food into batter and slip into hot oil. Fry for only several minutes (till tender), and then remove and drain on paper towels and distribute while hot to those seated at the table.
Notes
If the oil is very fresh and unused, very little browning may occur, even when the food is well-cooked.
This is slow food--literally. Nearly all the cooking is done while people are already at the table. Hiromi often fries--all at once--one kind of food--enough for each person at the table to have one piece, and then switches to another food for the next round. After he's worked through the variety of offerings, he takes requests for whatever is still desired.
***
Our small group at church numbers about 37 people, including several families with small children. We served tempura to most of them last night, utilizing the help of other families in assembling and cooking the meal. We provided the batter, dipping sauce, and rice for everyone. We were part of one of three cooking groups, each of which supplied a fryer, oil, and meat and vegetables, and some cooking utensils and serving dishes for their group.
We used to think it would never work to cook tempura for this size group. Now we know it can be done--but not without a lot of cooperation from a lot of people.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
10:08 PM
4 Comments:
I will testify to the tastiness of this meal. We enjoyed watching Hiromi 'cook' as well. And now I am eager to try it at home. Tempura has the potential for becoming a fun family meal for us if I can get comfortable with the recipes and procedures! Jo
By
Anonymous, at 10/16/2015
Don't feel like you have to do it exactly as we did it. We used to make the sauce/soup with chicken broth and soy sauce and that was good too. All of our family agreed though that they liked the newest version better. It's partly a matter of using what is available to you, and if you're the ones eating it and you like what you create, that's all that matters.
By
Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige), at 10/16/2015
This sounds tempting. I'd love to try tempura! I enjoy slow, sociable meals. Have you ever been to a fondue party?
By
Anonymous, at 10/17/2015
Rosina, I've been to a fondue party, but it's been a number of decades ago. I especially like having warm cheese sauce to dip things into, but a choclate-y one goes with it nicely. Tempura would work well for a family your size. In that case, you'd put the cooking kettle in the middle of the table (or perhaps at one end), and the batter bowl and meat-and-veggie platter nearby and crank up the frying process just as people sit down to eat. It's even better if you can do this outside at a picnic table, since no grease from the frying process will end up on your dining room ceiling.
By
Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige), at 10/17/2015
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