Let's Make A Perfect Japanese Tempura

2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29

Tempura is a typical dish of Japanese cuisine. The traditional dish is made from fried fish and vegetables in batter. You may not know that the word tempura is not a term of Japanese origin, but of Latin and is associated with the Christian tradition.

Tempura according to tradition, it arose thanks to the first contacts between the Japanese, Portuguese sailors and Christian missionaries. Christians have refrained from eating meat for three days at the beginning of each season. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, they ate only fish and vegetables. These periods were called Tempora and hence the word tempura. It can be said that the word comes from the Portuguese tempura, temperomandibular, which means spice.

January 7 is celebrated the day of Tempura.

The original recipe of Japanese tempura

According to the original Japanese recipe, the dough is prepared with only two ingredients and these are rice flour and very cold water / carbonated /.

To get good Japanese tempura, you will need:

100 g of cold water, preferably carbonated

100 g of rice flour

You will need to knead the ingredients quickly using Japanese chopsticks. If small lumps remain during kneading, it is irrelevant, as this will help make the tempura more crunchy. The dough is then stored in the refrigerator for 15 to 30 minutes.

Tempura should always be fresh and dry. You may have noticed that the original version of Japanese tempura dough is vegan and gluten-free, as it is made from rice flour and does not contain any animal ingredients - even eggs.

The best vegetables for your tempura

Among the best vegetables for tempura preparation arrange zucchini, pumpkin blossoms, carrots, green beans, peppers, cut into strips, eggplant into strips, broccoli and cauliflower, divided into roses, asparagus, pumpkin, cut into sticks, and if you want to experiment, try sage.

Secrets for preparing a crispy tempura

Let's see what are the secrets to prepare a perfect crispy and lighter tempura. You need to be especially careful about the temperatures when preparing the ingredients.

1) Oil temperature

To find out if the butter is ready for frying, just drop a small amount of dough and if it sinks and then rises - the temperature of the butter is good;

2) Use cold ingredients from the refrigerator

Ingredients that are essential to your tempura, such as vegetables, will need to be removed directly from the refrigerator. With hot oil and cold ingredients, a thermal shock must be generated to obtain a crispy tempura. And for this reason, it is recommended to refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes before using it;

3) Dough variant

If the classic Japanese recipe for dough made only with flour and water does not satisfy you, you can try a more conventional way: 1 egg yolk, 100 g of flour, 100 ml of cold water and 1 pinch of salt.

Another variant of the original recipe of Japanese tempura is by replacing carbonated water with beer and chickpea flour instead of rice flour;

4) Use sesame oil

The traditional oil used in Japan for the preparation of tempura, is sesame oil, which is one of the secrets of its characteristic taste. Some use sunflower or soybean oil to fry tempura, but if you want to fully follow the rules of Japanese cuisine, you should give preference to sesame oil. Sesame oil is a vegetable oil extracted from sesame and contains a powerful antioxidant - sesamol.