Thanks, seriously man. That is a deeply encouraging post to read this morning :)
Tempura isn’t too bad, all things considered. Getting it just right is tough, though. I seriously am still working on it. It photographs very well, but I always find things I’d like to improve.
For this batch, I went with:
1 cup AP Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Large Egg
~1 cup Ice Water
1lb Large, Peeled, De-Veined Shrimp
Cornstarch
Corn Oil for frying
Mix together the flour and baking powder, then separately, the ice water and egg. You can chill the flour mixture in the freezer for awhile if you wanna get really serious. Cold batter == lower gluten formation and thus more tender, crisp coating. Meanwhile, cut slits into the bottoms of the shrimp and then stretch them out by hand, “popping” the ligaments (?) in the back to straighten them. Cut the tips of the tails off and press the water out with a knife or your finger to prevent sputtering. Then dust them with cornstarch. Heat the oil to 350F in a deep fryer (or at least a deep enough layer of it in a regular pot/wok to submerge).
You can see my straightening didn’t entirely take–may have needed deeper slits or maybe more aggressive “popping,” Damn.
Anyway, right before you fry, mix together the batter. Add most of the water at first and beat it in. Try not to overmix and check texture. It should be fairly thin–moreso than, say, corndog batter or pancake batter, though probably not quite as thin as crepe batter. Add more of the water/egg mixture to achieve that level of thinness as needed.
Dunk the cornstarch-tossed shrimp into the batter, holding them by the tail. Let it drip for 10 seconds or so, shaking gently, then put the end of the shrimp into the oil. Because I use a deep fryer with a basket that battered foods love to stick to, I hold the shrimp by the tip of the tail in the oil for 10 seconds or so until the batter’s fried enough not to stick when I let go. My knuckles are covered with tiny burn marks thanks to all the tempura frying I’ve done here lately :(
For extra crispness, fry about 1, 1.5 minutes until just barely done and the batter is still quite pale. Remove from the oil, let cool slightly (maybe 5 minutes) on a paper-towel lined rack, then add back in for another 45-60 seconds to crisp it up and darken the batter to light gold. Remove to the rack again and then serve hot.
Tempura veg in the exact same batter, cooked according to the vegetable in question’s needs. The ones pictured above are slightly unfair–they’re last week’s tempura veggies warmed up in the toaster oven for a few minutes, which got the breading darker and crisped up again from the fridge, but sadly kinda overcooked the zucchini in particular.
And I write all that despite it not being perfect. The stuff you make like the above needs to be eaten quickly. Unlike, say, Korean Fried Chicken, which uses potato starch to maintain crispness for a very long time, this stuff will eventually go a little soggy from steam coming from the food within the breading. However, I think the kind of brittle crispness of potato starch batters wouldn’t be very visually appealing or have the right mouthfeel. Next time I might try a 50/50 or 25/75 mixture of potato starch/flour.
