Things wot I Made Then Ate: Tempura, shrimp and vegetables

A dipping sauce is prepared in advance. This sauce includes soy sauce, honey, mirin, chicken broth, rice vinegar, ginger, mixed dried chile flakes. Taste-tested and adjusted.

To give you ideas, the sauce could contain lemon, lime, tamarind, grapefruit juice, low-sodium soy, tamari, beef broth, kombu dashi, bonito, clam juice, broth made from the shrimp shells, vegetable broth, garlic, shallot, scallion, sugar, coriander or cilantro, cayenne, pepper, saki, wine, fish sauce, oil, sesame, and so on, you name it. Just make a sauce of your favorite ingredients that you want that day or that you have.

Oil is pre-heated to 350℉ / 175℃.

A cold thin batter is prepared. I observed Japanese cooks shallow fry tempura in a wide low cast-iron pan. They drop the item into the oil and then as it floats there at the beginning they spoon extra batter directly onto the frying item and immediately next to it so that the additional batter builds into bizarre spattered shapes that extend beyond the item's immediate batter coverage requirement. The extra batter added this way sometimes looks like insect legs. Other cooks simply let the cold batter splatter into artistic shapes and set that way in the hot oil and then handle the items gently to avoid breaking off the extended pieces of cooked batter. I do not do that because I do not like having the oil getting all messed up, and it is a bit of a mess.

Two bowls and two whisks are used to prepare the batter but it does not have to be done this way. A small egg and ice water is whisked in one bowl. The liquid could be soda water, tonic water, beer, something carbonated, or not. A combination of dry ingredients is combined in the second bowl. I wanted to include rice flour but I couldn't find it. So I whirled white rice in a coffee grinder. So white rice powder, AP flour, corn starch and a tiny amount of baking powder since I didn't use a carbonated liquid, and salt, are whisked together. The items are first coated with the dry ingredients in that second bowl to help the batter adhere. The items are removed and placed on a plate which frees up the bowl of dry ingredients which then can be poured into the liquid mixture until a thin batter is formed. The batter also contains an ice cube from the cold water.

Now there is a plate of prepared ingredients that are dusted with flour, a bowl of cold batter, a pot of hot oil, and a draining towel.

Next time I'll add a little sugar to the batter.

The sugar peas were gently scored with a small grater to rough up their surface so the batter would stick better.

It is more convenient for me to place several items into the batter together then carry the batter bowl containing the ingredients directly to the hot oil. Flick off extra batter and carefully place the items into the oil, then hasten to rinse off the goopy battered up hand, I'm neurotic that way, remove the items from the hot oil when they're done, they fry for only a minute or two, then repeat the process until all the items are deep or shallow fried. This goes very quickly so everything must be set up and prepared. (Up to three or four hand-rinsings, or else I'd be handling the camera with a battered-up hand. You might not have that concern, but I'd rinse anyway because like I said, I'm neurotic about goopy fingers.)