Tempura
By: Helen Pitlick
Published: Thursday, December 3, 2009 - 11:42pm

Ingredients




4 large shrimps
1 egg
1 cup ice water
1 cup all purpose flour
Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation

1 Remove heads and shells from shrimps without removing tails. Devein the shrimps. Make two or three incisions in the stomach sides of the shrimps. 2 Lightly press the back of shrimps by fingers.Using a knife, remove the dirt from the tails of shrimps. 3 Dry shrimps on paper towels.Mix eggs and ice water in a bowl. Add flour in the egg mixture.Lightly mix the batter.Flour shrimps before frying. 4 Heat vegetable oil to 340F degree in a deep pan. To check the temperature of the oil, drop a little tempura 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. 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. 5 Pick the tail of shrimp and dip shrimp in the tempura batter. Immediately fry the shrimp until crisp. 6 Serve tempura shrimp right away with tempura dipping sauce or salt. Tempura is best served hot.

About


Cooking tip: Use ice water for the batter. This is really important to prevent the batter from absorbing too much oil. 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. 
You can also use vegetables instead of shrimp; 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.