Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura

Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura

Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura

Common Ingredients for Tempura:
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:

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