Experimenting with Shrimp Tempura

Shrimp Tempura Test Run

First we made the dashi by soaking dried kelp in 1 liter of water on the burner. Just as we got to boiling we pulled the kelp out.

Kelp heating up in water.

Then we added in cold water to take the temperature down and added in the bonita flakes.

Bonito flakes settle in the dashi mixture.

It came back to a boil then we pulled it off the burner. Then we let the bonita settle to the bottom and sit for about 2 minutes. We strained the dashi mixture out to get it clear. Then the dashi was set aside for the tempura sauce.

Straining out the kelp and bonito flakes to get a clear dashi broth.

Then we used the kelp and bonita remnants to make a secondary dashi for use later.

Lee de-veined the shrimp and washed a few mushrooms, while the oil in the deep fryer was heating up to 340 degrees.

De-veining the shrimp.

I started to make the tempura sauce by mixing the dashi with mirin and light soy sauce.

Adding Mirin to the dashi and soy sauce to make the tempura dipping sauce.

Then I grated daikon and set it aside.

We set up the batter, and the oil was ready at 340 degreed.

Prepping the shrimp.

At Wakuriya, the shrimp tempura had a shiso leave and a piece of nori wrapped around it. We tried a few different ways to apply the shiso and nori, first wrapping them around the shrimp then dipping into the batter.

Shrimp wrapped in shiso and nori.

We found that the shiso didn't stick to the shrimp and sometimes peeled off during the deep frying. Then we tried dipping each shrimp into the batter first, then wrapping the shiso/nori around.

Shrimp dipped in batter.

This worked, but it didn't look like the Wakuriya one. Then next set, we applied batter to the shrimp, then wrapped it with the shiso/nori, and re-dipped it into the batter. This turned out to look the best. We also tried a thinner and thicker batter to see how the tempura would turn out. We liked the thicker batter as it gave us more "crunch."

Into the "deep."

However, I think a slightly lighter batter might look better as it would allow more of the black-green color to come through from the shiso/nori wrapper.

Tempura!

One thing I had missed in reading from the recipe, was that we needed to dredge the shrimp in flour prior to dipping into the batter. I think this would have given us a more crispy texture from the batter. Our first attempts came out a little soft. We tried to fix this initially by cooking our tempura longer in the deep fryer. This did help, but we would have liked more crunch if possible. For the cooking club meeting we won't forget to apply the flour before we dip.

Plated!

For a first attempt, the taste of the tempura came out pretty good. We could however, improve on the texture of our batter by achieving more "crunch." Dredging in flour might help. Maybe adding corn starch to the batter would work? I also heard double frying might do the trick. Also, making sure the water is very cold (ice water) might get us there. Until next time.

Shrimp tempura with daikon radish and scallions in dipping sauce.