These feather-light vegetable or seafood fritters are characteristic of Japanese cuisine: as Nancy Singleton Hachisu writes in Japan: The Cookbook, even the country’s fried foods somehow “manage to be gloriously free of heaviness”.
The idea of deep-frying is thought to have been brought to Japan by Portuguese traders, hence the name, which apparently comes from the word tempuras, or ember days, when they would abstain from meat. According to the late Tokyo tempura restaurateur Isao Yabuki, two of the Japanese characters chosen to represent it are apparently oddly appropriate: “A flour-like gauze, or a batter so delicate that it resembles a revealing dress.”
In the intervening centuries, the Japanese have turned frying into an art form: at a really good tempura-ya joint, you sit right in front of your personal chef – time is of the essence with tempura, so the closer you are to the action, the better your meal will be. Which is why, unless you live near a great restaurant, it’s worth getting the wok out at home.
The flour
Tempura isn’t just the Japanese name for the same thing you’d get at the local chippie: the “key characteristics of a tempura-style batter are extreme lightness of colour and texture”, according to J Kenji López-Alt of US website Serious Eats, which is not something you could say for your average fish supper (and nor would that be desirable, frankly).
This is achieved, in part, by minimising gluten formation in the batter, either by using a low-protein flour, like the cake flour Nancy Singleton Hachisu calls for, or a proportion of gluten-free flour – corn being the most popular. You can also buy special, low-protein tempura flour from specialist retailers, if you’re a real fanatic, but this tends to also be a mixture of wheat and cornflours, so it’s cheaper to make it at home.
Although it’s perfectly possible to make a light, crisp batter with plain flour (cake flour is hard to come by in the UK; the equivalent, “sponge flour”, tends to be slightly higher in protein than the US version, and has raising agents added, which isn’t necessarily desirable; this should be a lacy, rather than voluminous batter), it’s safer to cut it with the same amount of cornflour, as López-Alt and Luiz Hara’s book Nikkei recommends (rice flour gives a sandier texture, I find).
The liquid
At its simplest, the batter is made with flour and water, but, as the popularity of beer batters in British pubs attests, using a carbonated liquid makes a lighter batter, so fizzy water is your best option (López-Alt calls for soda water, but if this makes a difference, we’re not sensitive enough to detect it). More important, however, is chilling it before use: according to Harold McGee’s On Food & Cooking, this makes it more viscous, and thus helps it cling to the surface of the food it’s coating. Generally, I’d suggest flouring whatever it is first, to give the batter something to grip on to, but this is one scenario where a thinner, more elegant result is preferable, so any extra layers are to be avoided, unless you’re dealing with something particularly slippery, like tofu.
To keep things as cold as possible, several recipes add ice to the batter mixture itself, but the inevitable meltwater means that later batches of tempura become increasingly soggy and leak excess moisture into the frying oil. Charmaine Solomon’s technique in the Japan & Korea volume of her Complete Asian Cookbook, which suggests mixing the batter in a bowl set in a bowl of ice, is easier to control.
López-Alt also adds ice-cold vodka, on the basis that it “limits the rate of gluten formation, so the batter can sit a bit longer before it goes bad”. This may be helpful in a restaurant situation, where batter must necessarily be made slightly further ahead, but again, testers and I can’t detect enough of a difference to make it worthwhile recommending this pricy addition.
The consistency of the finished batter is important; though it shouldn’t be too thick and claggy, Solomon’s is so thin, it runs off into the pan. Double cream is what I aim for.
The flavourings
Interestingly, Singleton Hachisu’s master recipe is egg-free, though she gives the option of adding one, if preferred, and the results are spot on texture-wise, proving that a vegan tempura can be a beautiful thing. That said, the others using eggs have a richer flavour, though there’s no point in adding the bland white – yolk alone, as used by Hara, will do the trick.
Surprisingly, to me at least, few recipes season the batter, perhaps because tempura is intended to be served with an umami-rich dipping sauce, but a good pinch of salt, as Tim Anderson’s Japaneasy recommends, is important to bring out the flavour of whatever you’re frying.
The mixing
One of the most important elements of the recipe is in the mixing: the batter should be stirred as little as possible to minimise that gluten formation. According to home cook and Tokyo native Yumiko of blog Recipe Tin Japan, “just draw[ing] the number 8 in the batter several times” is sufficient.
Anderson expands on another important point: “A general rule to follow that it should be badly mixed: a slightly lumpy batter contains more air and irregularities that will give your tempura a light, lacy structure.” It should look like batter, but with lumps and pockets of dry flour – as if you’ve given up halfway. López-Alt likes to shake the bowl at the same time, to minimise the mixing, but I worry this might knock out air.
It’s also vital to make the batter as soon before cooking as possible, for maximum crispness: McGee explains that this gives the flour as little time as possible to soak up water, “so the moisture is rapidly removed… during frying to produce a crisp crust”.
The frying
Between 170C and 180C (335F-350F) is the general consensus on frying temperature, though for things that will take longer to cook, such as sweet potato, for example, Hara’s 150C-160C (330F-325F)is safer if the batter is retain its pale hue. Do not overcrowd the pan – cook the tempura in small batches, and make sure the oil comes back up to temperature before adding another batch, because cooking it at too low a heat will lead to oily, soggy results.
Tempura is a dish best served straight from the fryer – “if you’ve got somewhere for people to sit in the kitchen, gather them round for a TEMPURA PARTY!!!” as Anderson puts it. If not, keep warm in a low oven, with the door slightly ajar, and serve as quickly as possible.
Professional tempura chefs constantly agitate the tempura while it’s frying, so it catches excess batter floating in the oil, to give an uneven nubbly finish, but this is a tough one for an amateur to master (though films online may help). Instead, turn the tempura regularly, to ensure even cooking.
Some recipes, including Solomon’s, mix the usual neutral vegetable oil with sesame for what she describes as a “deliciously nutty flavour”. This is very much a matter of taste; like me, some of my testers find it overwhelming, so unless you’re a sesame fiend, I’d avoid it.
What to fry
Oddly enough, this is the least important aspect of perfecting tempura; it’s a relatively forgiving medium, though meat is generally considered too heavy for this treatment. Denser root vegetables such as squash and tubers should be cut thinly and cooked slightly more slowly, but having tried everything from green beans to cod cheeks, I can confirm they’re all fair game. A few suggestions from the recipes I try: broccoli florets, onion rings, spring onions, mushrooms, lotus root, spinach leaves, sweet potato, pumpkin, courgette and aubergine batons, carrots, peppers, okra, shiso leaves, king prawns and white fish chunks.
What to serve it with
Flavoured salts (matcha, curry and so on) are popular accompaniments in Japan, but it’s more traditional to serve it with a dipping sauce, usually made from dashi stock, rice wine and soy sauce, sometimes with a little sugar mixed in. I personally think this is gilding the lily (as well as spoiling that lovely, crisp coating), but I’ve included a recipe below if you have more adventurous tastes.
Most importantly, however: eat it hot and crisp, fresh from the pan. You will not regret it.
Perfect tempura
Prep 20 min
Cook 1-4 min per batch
Serves 4
For the batter
150g plain flour
150g cornflour
½ tsp fine salt
300ml chilled fizzy water
2 egg yolks
For the dipping sauce (optional)
100ml dashi stock
2 tbsp mirin
2-3 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
To fry (for example)
8 king prawns, peeled and cleaned, tails left on
1 small aubergine, cut into ½cm-thick slices
6 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 4 cm lengths
8 sprouting broccoli stems
8 wedges of pumpkin or squash, peeled and cut into ½cm-thick slices
8 shiso or large spinach leaves
Neutral oil, for frying
Ice
Prepare the ingredients you are intending to batter before doing anything else.
Stir together the ingredients for the dipping sauce, if serving, and line a large oven tray with kitchen paper.
Heat a fryer (or a large pan a third full) of flavourless oil to 180C/350F. Meanwhile, sift the two flours and salt into a medium bowl, then sit that in a larger bowl full of ice.
Once the oil has come up to temperature, measure out the chilled water and quickly beat in the egg yolks. Briefly stir this into the flour with chopsticks, until you have a lumpy batter about the consistency of double cream.
Check the temperature of the oil by dropping in a blob of batter – it should sizzle immediately – then fry the ingredients in small batches, dipping them in the batter to coat before dropping them into the oil (I find chopsticks useful here, because you can get them very close to the surface of the oil), then agitate and turn the ingredients as necessary, until crisp and very pale golden; this should take one (for seafood) to four (root vegetables, squash etc) minutes, depending on what you’re frying.
Put the tempura on the paper-lined tray to drain, then serve immediately, while still piping hot.
• Tempura: are the Japanese the kings of deep-fried food? Where would you recommend to eat it – and what are your top tips for making it at home?
