While I’m not big on overdoing fried food, I really enjoy the lightness of tempura batter. Just enough crunch while allowing the food being fried full flavor applause.
My tempura batter had always been the super simple dry wet mix my Aunt intorduced. Rice flour, ap flour, egg, iced water. Fried in peanut oil. Dip is a combo of soy sauce, sesame oil and fish sauce. The veg/protein platter consists of broccoli, zukes, sweet potato slices, asparagus, latge shrimp, and onion rings.
Looking to improve my tempura game, what is your batter of choice and what foods do you dip and fry up? Which oil do you use? Any dipping sauce?
we use peanut oil to fry. Sometimes, I use grapeseed oil but I buy peanut oil in 5 gallons container so have not use grapeseed oil in a while.
For fish,( rockfish and freshly caught bluefish ) our favorite is still dipping it in sweet potato starch, egg, and panko in that order.
We found a Korean mix which we now prefer to the above just for shrimp and baby squids
Dip is just Frank’s hot wing sauce and for squids, marinara sauce with a shake of tabasco. That and squeeze of lemon juice is all we like.
Here is a picture of the Korean frying mix
Thank you. I have never bought a premixed dry batter because the brands overwhelmed me. The one of posted sounds interesting. Sweet potato starch I will look for. Thx. I need to expand my fish horizons! Dips are def.
growing up, sweet potato starch was what my mother used.
My husband was diagnosed with gluten enteropathy, so I went back to sweet potato starch rather than corn starch for thickening and frying. I find it less messy, less residue on the oil. Gluten enteropathy patients has higher incidence of adenoma of colon. Resistant starch is supposed to help.
There are two kinds of sweet potato starch. Buy the finer one rather than the coarser kind. The Asian store can help. you but if there is nobody to help, compare the texture. Sweet potato starch is also a resistant starch.
here is a picture of it on amazon but it only cost about $2.00 at Asian store.
The picture is that of a fine one. ( look at the word) and look up the word for coarse in translation
this article is about resistant starch . Sweet potato has one of the highest.
The Chinese character for coarse 粗
HOPE THIS HELPS
I like mushrooms, the dipping sauce works well with most fresh ones, enoki espeically. Thinly sliced zucchini or eggplant are very nice too. Don’t forget green bean. As for frying oil, I use grapeseed due to its neutral taste.
Shiitake mushrooms are one of my favorite tempura veggies to eat out. You’ve already listed my other faves - broccoli florets, asparagus, and those big sweet potato slices (bonus points for colorful!)
