Tempura Tuesday
We’ve had this “Tempura Flour” in our cupboard for ages. We bought, thinking wow cool, and then there it sat.
There were never enough veggies, never the right protein, never enough time or patience. The flour, however, exceeded in patience – it waited, and waited, and waited until one day, miraculously, we had everything. Even time. So out came the computer, and the recipe search for how to make tempura batter, out came the knives, the cutting boards, the shrimps and squid rings from the freezer. We looked for an easy tempura recipe, waltzed towards the kitchen, dug out the tempura flour and found out that – wow – not only was the tempura flour patient, it was also magic.
Yes, magic. Basically, if we had taken the time to read the front of the bag (which maybe we had, eons and eons ago when we bought it) we would have noticed the large lettering (you can see it in the photo) that said
only add water
Aha! No complicated recipes, no trying to figure out which was the easiest, no whipping and mixing and folding in slowly. All you needed was cold water and…zip! Nothing else!
So we collected the ingredients
and then started the frying! It was really, really easy. Our kitchen is basically a one-human-kitchen (as opposed to one-man or one-woman) so this time, boyfriend cooked and I took the chance to take photos. As you can see, we kept the batter cool (it needs that) by putting the bowl in which it was into a larger bowl with iced water. After that, the going was simple!
Just a few tips:
– if it’s your first time, try each ingredient after it’s been fried to check if it’s perfectly cooked
– add few ingredients at a time to the oil, so as not to let it become too cold
– cook in vegetable oil, not olive (costs more and is heavier to digest)
– make small batches and eat it hot!
So, on the whole, a really good buy that gave us a new and creative dinner. No, it isn’t the traditional way and japanese-lovers everywhere will cringe when they read this but…hey, it was good. And cheap!
Together with Nicole Duplaix, Chair of the IUCN-SSC Otter Specialist Group , I wrote a book all about otters and how wonderful they are. Check it out We Love Otters
fullofdaisies.com 