tempura : string mushrooms and green pepper / ししとうとえのき天ぷら

My room still smells oily, and I don't know how long it'll take for it to go away! I knew cooking oily food in a tiny apartment would end up like this, and yet I still went ahead. The cause : some itching for home-made tempura!

I'm really excited as this was my first time making it, and so couldn't wait to post it up.

I've been dreaming about making tempura for a long time. So much so the other night I couldn't sleep; I must've gotten hungry just thinking about food. So I decided to search the internet for recipes that could make good the ingredients I already had.

Note my tiny kitchen with the ingredients :
1) 150ml chilled water (can be water with ice cubes too)
2) 100gm tempura flour
3) pepper/ししとう*, string mushrooms/えのき*, seaweed/のり* (can be lotus root, pumpkin, bitter gourd, fish or eel)

Looks very minimal right?

Add the tempura flour to the chilled water into a bowl and mix it. The mixture doesn't have to be smooth.

Prepare the ingredients : For the pepper, remember to pierce the middle with a toothpick (to release the air when frying?!). I decided to separate the clump of enoki into tiny bunches and wrapped them with seaweed (so that it would hold well when fried).

Get ready the pot filled with oil. I decided to use a pot because it had more depth - hence less oil used. Wait till it reaches about 170-180degC. You can dip a chopstick into the oil; if there are bubbles arising from the base, that should be hot enough.

Cover the ingredients with the tempura mix, and put into the boiling oil - not too many at one time so they don't clump together. Wait for a few minutes until it gets crispy, then take it out and place them on a plate lined with paper towels.

Note that, if the oil is not hot enough, the tempura will end up soft and lumpy. Sufficient heat will ensure a crispy texture.

I like my tempura a little crunchy on the outside, soft in the inside. To preserve the crispness, I recommend sprinkling with flavoured salt (try the yuzu lemon or the ume plum). You can dip into the usual tempura dip/tsuyu too.

Not wanting to waste the remaining oil, I decided to chop some onions and fry them. Now I also have home-made onion oil! It may look a bit dark here; but that's because there's a lot of onions in there! Plus it smelt really good! Can't wait to sprinkle some onto stir-fry vege or mihun soup (^.^)V


* 獅子唐 【ししとう】 (n) green pepper
*えのきたけ; えのきだけ; エノキタケ; エノキダケ 《えのき茸; 榎茸》 (n) (uk) enoki mushroom (long, thin and white); Flammulina velutipes; winter mushroom
*海苔 【のり(gikun)】 (n) nori (edible seaweed, esp. species Porphyra tenera and others of genus Porphyra, usu. dried and pressed into sheets); laver; (P)