Prawn Tempura

Sunday, 30 minutes to noon. We have just returned from church. It's cold and damp outside. My wife is busy preparing lunch. Instead of helping her in the kitchen, I decided to relax: post on the blog one of the dishes she is preparing, i.e. Prawn Tempura. Why?

"You can only have one cook in the kitchen." :)

Tempura: The classic “batter-fried” food in Japan, which is no stranger to everyone. What is not well known about this so-called typical Japanese dish is that in actual fact, it was introduced, or at least devised, centuries ago by Europeans living in Japan – the Spanish and Portuguese who established missions in southern Japan in the late 16th century. The dish caught on with the Japanese, who added the thin, delicately seasoned dipping sauce with grated daikon mixed in.

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We have tried making tempura a number times but somehow never really managed to "straighten" the prawns. It was only in April 2008, when we hosted the Ambrose family to a Japanese dinner at our home, that we finally cracked the code: You need to break their spine (located on the bottom-side of the prawns) and they'll become limp. I suppose the same principle applies to human beings - to "straighten" them, you break their backbones.

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To prepare prawn: Shell and devein shrimp, but leave tails attached. Chop off the tips of the shrimp tails and gently press out moisture from shrimp with the flat of the knife tip. To prevent shrimp from curling as they are deep-fried, make 3-4 incisions along the belly, and then lightly tap across each shrimp with back of knife blade (play video below).

The Art of Making Tempura: To achieve good results, three essential points must be observed in making tempura, – (1) fresh ingredients, (2) oil at a constant temperature, and (3) lumpy batter. The reason for using fresh ingredients is self evident. Keeping oil at a constant, proper temperature means even frying, and precise control, and light food. But perhaps lumpy batter is a sine qua non for good tempura. .

Photo: The marks of a good tempura batter are a powdery ring of flour

at the sides of the mixing bowl and a mixture marked with lumps of dry flour.

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Batter: Make the batter in 2 batches, the first batch just before you are ready to begin deep-frying (as you are waiting for the oil to heat). In a mixing bowl, lightly beat 1 egg york, then pour in 1 cup of ice water and give this a few strokes. Add 1 cup of shifted flour all at once. Stroke a few times with chopsticks or fork, just till the ingredients are loosely combined. The batter should be very lumpy. Mix the batter with the least amount of movement (if you overmix, the batter will be sticky and the coating will turn oily and heavy). Make the second batch of batter as the first is used up.
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Important: With tempura, the goal is to achieve a lacy, golden effect with the deep fried coating, not a thick, armorlike package casing. To avoid a heavy, oily-tasting coating, do the opposite of all that you would do to make good pancakes.
(1) Make the tempura batter just before you are ready to begin deep frying. Do not let the batter stand. In fine tempura restaurants, for instance, batter is made in small batches as orders come in.
(2) Tempura batter should never be mixed well. It should not be smooth and velvety. It should be only loosely folded together (with chopsticks, which are not an efficient tool for mixing and hence the perfect utensil for this job).

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Depending on how much lacy, golden coating you like on your tempura, you may adjust the coating technique and the consistency of the batter. If you like a thick coating, make a thick batter using slightly less ice water than in the recipe below. For the thinnest coating possible, make a thin batter by using more ice water than indicated below and gently shake dipped items over the batter bowl so excess batter returns to the batch.

Seasonal fish and vegetables are used in tempura. Common ingredients include prawn, squid, sweet potato slices, bell pepper, mushroom, lady finger, asparagus and brinjal.
Make sure all foods to be coated are thoroughly dry (pat dry with toweling if necessary) and then dredge lightly in flour. This flour coat allows the batter to adhere well to the food.

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Oil: The oil should be fairly hot, about 340*F/170*C. Test by dropping a tiny bit of batter into the oil; it should descend beneath the surface of the oil, then be buoyed up to the surface, the oil gently bubbling round it edges.

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Sequence: Begin with the vegetables, then move on to shrimp and fish or other foods that need a higher oil temperature.

Process: Each food item progresses through the assembly line in this way – use finders to dip food in flour, shake off excess, then dip in batter; slide coated material in hot oil and deep-fry till golden, around 3 minutes, turning in the oil for even cooking. Retrieve with slotted spoon or cooking chopsticks and briefly drain before transferring to serving plate. Skim the surface of the oil occasionally to keep it clean. Stir batter once or twice, as you work, to prevent it from separating.

Dipping sauce: 1 cup of dashi (fish stock made from dried bonito), 1/3 cup of mirin, 1/3 cup light soya sauce, 1 cup of grated white radish (daikon), few teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger.

Source: Shizuo Tsuji (1980) Japanese Cooking – A Simple Art.