Hi everybody!
Welcome back to City suppers.
I am Tim Anderson, Master Chef champion, and today I am going to show you a classic Japanese
dish.
It is something that is really versatile, really simple, and really crowd pleasing but
it is something that you can make with ordinary supermarket ingredients and I am talking of
course about tempura.
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So for the asparagus, which is quite thin, we do not need to do anything to it except
for get the woody ends off and the best way to that is to just take it by both ends and
snap it and where it snaps is the line between the woody part and the tender part.
So get rid of that or you could save it for stock.
There you go.
Asparagus ready to go.
So for the broccoli, we are just going to trim the thicker ends off which will be a
little bit tough and also they will not quite fit in the pan.
So about like that.
That is it.
And now for the courgette, we are going to cut it into strips basically.
We are going to make the slices quite thick.
So about just shy of a centimeter.
Like so.
And there you go.
The veg is all prepped up.
Now for the fish, and by the way you can use just about any fish that you like.
White fish is better.
Nothing too oily.
I have some lovely fresh plaice.
Which smells deliciously sweet.
I love flatfish.
It is so good.
It has been lovingly filleted by our fishmonger but we still have to get it into manageable
sizes so we are going to just find the center of it and it is really easy to do this with
a flat fish.
It sort of has it's own guides.
There is a line down the center of the fillet that you can run your knife through.
And flatfish is a really good fish for tempura too because it cooks really quickly because
it is so thin.
You can do things like cod or pollock or haddock but you might want to cut it into smaller
chunks just so the heat can get into it and cook it evenly, quickly.
Alright.
So that is the extent of our fish and veg prep.
Now, we are going to make a ponzu dip for the tempura.
So, add some good quality soy sauce first.
They are not all created equal.
Spend a little bit more on your soy sauce folks.
Next we will add some rice vinegar.
Next we will add the citrus juice.
So we have soy sauce, rice vinegar, little bit of lemon juice.
Also going to add some sugar and that will sweeten it up just a touch.
It is about 10 grams.
About two teaspoon fulls And lastly just to add some nice nutty richness and counter the
acidity a bit, a splash of sesame oil.
Now you may have heard some popping noises that is of course our oil which is heating
up.
It is just plain vegetable oil.
Getting a little bit of moisture in there so it is just spitting back.
And that is coming up to temperature.
We want that at 180 degrees.
It is almost there.
We will just whisk our sauce in the meantime.
Basically you just want all the sugar to dissolve and all the flavors to come together.
Give it a taste.
Mmm, perfect.
You want it to be sharp because obviously it is deep fried food and it will be a little
bit oily but if its too sharp just add a little bit more sugar maybe a little bit more sesame
oil.
Finally of course we make the batter.
Now of course the batter is probably the most important part to get right in tempura.
It is very easy there are just a few little tricks you have to keep in mind.
So, I have some cold sparkling water.
Cold because it will help regulate the temperature and keep the batter from burning.
Sparkling because the bubbles will help to really lighten up the batter and make it really
crispy and delicious.
So we will start with about half a liter of that.
And one egg.
Whisk that up.
Yeah, there we go.
That is what we are looking for.
Nice, thin, light, bubbly, and a little bit lumpy.
I will start with the vegetables.
By the way if you do not have chopsticks use tongs or just get involved with your hands.
Put the courgettes in there first.
So just make sure your vegetables are nicely coated.
Not too thick.
Give them a shake off.
And if you like the look of this recipe, and you want to learn more just click subscribe.
Alright, so.
Veg goes in.
Do not try to fry too many at one time because they will stick together they will also drop
the temperature of the oil.
Which will result in soggy, sad, over cooked veg.
So these will cook for 3, 4, maybe 5 minutes.
You want them to be barely golden brown just a really light blonde color and when you are
ready to take them out get a tray and line it with paper towel and carefully put them
out.
Do not stack them on top of each other of course because the steam coming off of them
will make the batter go soggy.
So next we will do our lovely broccoli.
Into the oil.
Next of course is asparagus.
Those go in.
Evenly coated.
And into the oil.
Alright these are good to go.
Lastly of course, the fish.
Alright these look beautiful.
Absolutely gorgeous.
There we go.
Now we are ready to plate it up.
So usually, you will serve tempura as sort of a communal platter in the middle of the
table people can duck in and grab from it with their chopsticks.
Just dish that in.
Lovely.
Then we will just arrange the tempura.
And that is it.
Tempura.
Classic.
Delicious.
Easy and not as unhealthy as you might think.
Be sure to tune in again.
There is plenty more where this came from.
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