Japanese Tempura

Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura:

Prepare the ingredients to be fried. Choose an assortment of vegetables and seafood (scallops, shrimp, shucked oysters, broccoli, mushrooms, eggplant, squash such as zucchini, sweet potatoes, onions, scallions, asparagus, string beans) All vegetables should be sliced thin so they fry quickly.
Make tempura batter, the dipping sauce and mustard sauce (if using).
Heat vegetable oil in a deep pan to 340-350F degree.
Lightly dip ingredients in the batter and immediately fry them until crisp. It takes longer to fry vegetables than to fry seafood.
Drain tempura on a rack.
Serve right away with tentsuyu (tempura dipping sauce) or salt. Tempura is best served hot. Grated daikon radish is a common condiment.

Batter #1
1 egg
1 cup ice water
1 cup all purpose flour

Beat the egg in a bowl. Add ice water - be sure to use very cold water. Sift and add the flour; mix lightly. Be careful not to overmix the batter. Enough batter for 4 servings.

Traditional Dipping Sauce:
1/2 cup dashi soup stock - made from kelp and fermented tuna (or substitute chicken stock)
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. dry sherry
2 Tbs. fresh gingerroot, peeled and grated

Combine all ingredients and heat in a small saucepan to blend.

Sesame Scallion Dipping Sauce from Wolfgang Puck:
1/4 cup mirin (a kind of rice wine similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon wasabi
2 tablespoons roasted (dark) sesame oil
2 tablespoons minced scallions or green onions

In a small bowl, whisk together the mirin, sugar, lemon juice, soy, and wasabi. Stir in the sesame oil and scallions. Use as needed.

Batter #2
1 cup of flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 cups of seltzer water
Salt

Mix all ingredients together being careful not to overmix.

Dipping sauce from Tyler Florence:
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (recommended: Srirachi Hot Chili Sauce)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

To make the dipping sauce, combine all ingredients in a bowl. Set aside to allow the flavors to develop.

Hot Chinese Mustard Sauce from Wolfgang Puck:
2 tablespoons Chinese dry mustard (or Colman's English Mustard Powder)
Pinch turmeric
2 teaspoons water
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup pickled ginger liquid
1 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon chili oil
1 tablespoon roasted (dark) sesame oil
1 cup peanut oil

In a bowl, dissolve the dry mustard and turmeric in the water and rice wine vinegar. Stir in the pickled ginger liquid, lemon juice, and sugar and whisk until well blended. Combine the chili, sesame and peanut oils. Slowly whisk in the oil to the mustard mixture until emulsified. Refrigerate until needed. This can be prepared up to 1 week ahead.

Tips for Making Crispy Tempura

Tip 1: Ice
Use ice water for the batter. This is really important to prevent the batter from absorbing too much oil.

Tip 2: Batter
Do not make the batter ahead of time. Try not to over mix the batter and not to coat ingredients with the batter too much.

Tip 3: Frying Order
If you are frying both seafood and vegetables, fry vegetables first. Then, fry seafood. Fry vegetables at 340F degree and fry seafood at 350F degree.

Tip 4: Oil Temperature
To check the temperature of frying oil, drop a little batter into the oil. If the batter comes up right away instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan, it's about 360 F degree. If the batter goes halfway to the bottom and comes up, it's about 340F degree. This is said to be the right temperature to fry tempura.

There are a few different ways to serve Tempura. Here are two of them:

Serve the Tempura pieces on a plate, and prepare some bowls with Tempura dipping sauce (as above).
Tendon (Tempura Donburi): Put the Tempura pieces in the dipping sauce, remove them, and put them on top of cooked rice in a bowl. (One bowl per person)