Tempura Veggies.

Back with a quick way to spice up your veggies: Japanese style tempura. I'm using a premixed tempura flour, but you can find various recipe how to make it yourself on the net if you can't find tempura flour at your local shop. Here we go:

110g tempura flour
150 ice cold water
Finely sliced veggies (carrots, peppers, squash)
(Raw tiger prawns, cleaned and left with the tail on)
Neutral oil for frying (e.g. sunflower)

To chop the carrots as safe as possible without them slipping and the knife ending up in your fingers, first cut a thin slice of lengthwise.

Roll it over on that side to stabelize it. Cut down leangthwise.

Stack the slices on to of eachother. Cut down in the middle (or slice finely for julienne). Chop the rest of the veggies. Spread them out on a plate and put them in the fridge for 30 minutes. This will dry the veggies and make the batter stick better.

Mix the icecold water with the tempura flour. It's ok if there are a few lumps as it will just make the batter more crunchy when cooked. Put the batter in the fridge until you are going to use it.

Place your veggies, batter and neutral oil close to eachother. Heat up the oil, so when you drop a bit of the batter in it, it will immediately flow to the top and start frying. Dip the veggies in the batter one at a time and let it drip off. You don't want too much batter on.

Carefully drop the veggies in the oil one at a time so they don't stick.

Use chopsticks to drip fine threads of batter on top of the vegetables, but don't put the chop sticks into the oil. Turn the veggies over with a a fork. Drip more tempura on them.

After a few minutes, remove the veggies to a rack to drip off. Placing them on paper towel will make them less crunchy as they just lie in the oil.

Serve while warm accompanied with a bit of sweet and sour sauce.