By: Ilona Salim
Do you know that point in the week where your fridge is suddenly full of random half-eaten vegetables? No? You know... when you've made that veggie curry or roasted vegetable or veggie stir fry, but you didn't end up using all of your veggies. Well, that happened to me just last week. There are a lot of ways you can use them up, but one recipe I always love to pull out during these trying times is this tempura recipe. It is super quick, easy and ensures a delicious ending to your veggie mania.
I hope you like it! :)
The Recipe - Vegetable Tempura
Ingredients
Tempura Batter:
- 250 ml cold water
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup corn starch
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Oil, to fry
Tempura Sauce:
- 3/4 cups dashi
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
Veggies:
- Thinly sliced eggplants
- Kale
- Broccoli
- Onion rings
- Mushrooms
- Feel free to add other vegetables to your tempura mix
Steps
Combine flour, corn starch and salt, then sift into a medium bowl.
In a separate glass, whisk together egg and cold water.
Slowly pour wet ingredients into the bowl and mix until just combined. Do not over mix (some little clumps are okay, but you want a nice thin batter - almost like crepe!) Keep batter cold at all times.
Cut up your vegetables.
Heat up your oil (up to 350F). If you don't have a thermometer, you can dip your chopstick in to see if bubbles start forming. If yes, then it is hot enough. Once hot enough, start frying~
Dip your veggies in the batter, let the excess drip off, and place into hot oil to fry.
Fry until light yellow/brown. The frying time varies depending on the vegetables. For leafy greens like kale, approx. 30 seconds should be enough. The eggplants, onions, and broccoli took about a minute. Lastly, the mushroom was quite large so it took 2-3 minutes.
Once they are done, let rest on a paper towel to remove excess oil.
Combine ingredients for tempura sauce in a bowl.
You are ready to enjoy your tempura! :)