Tempura

Explanation

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Tempura is a traditional Japanese dish. The primary ingredients are vegetables and seafood. You can enjoy things that are in season, at the height of their flavor.

Because the batter-coated ingredients are fried for only a short time, their savory tastes are locked inside and can be fully enjoyed.

There are two main ways to enjoy tempura. One is to dip it in tentsuyu-a dipping sauce made by adding soy sauce and some other ingredients to a stock based on dried bonito flakes and kelp. The other is to use salt. You do this when you want to focus more on the natural taste of each ingredient. Making authentic tempura requires superior cooking skills.

The first stage is the preparation of the ingredients. Let’s look at how to prepare Japanese whiting. First, the fish are carefully scaled with a knife and the heads removed. Then they’re sliced open along the spine, and the bones and guts are removed. The important things is to make sure that the fish don’t split into two parts. Finally, the tails are cut to the same length so that they’ll look nice when they’re served.

This kind of meticulous preparation makes each ingredient taste and looked its best.

The next stage is to make the batter, which keeps the savory tastes locked in.

A mixture of beaten eggs and water is poured into a bowl of flour. It’s important that the ingredients are only lightly mixed. If they are mixed too much, the batter will get sticky and won’t taste good when it’s fried.

The final stage is to fry the ingredients in oil. Once an item has been coated in batter, it should be fried immediately. And it shouldn’t be left in the oil any longer than necessary-not even one second.

To make delicious tempura, everything must be done carefully and precisely at each step of the process.

Tempura is thought to have originated from a type of fried food that came to Japan from Portugal in the 16^th century. It was very similar to fritters.

During the Edo period, this fried food from overseas was adapted, Japanized, and became extremely popular among ordinary people.

Nowadays, new and unusual kinds of tempura are being created to meet contemporary needs.

This is tempura ice cream. Hot batter and ice cream are a match made in heaven.