Here's how to mix your own Tempura batter instead of buying those off-the-shelf readymade Tempura flour.
You can fry all sorts of vegetables such as enoki mushroom, carrots, long beans, lady finger, brinjals, sweet potatoes, kangkung, spinach, yam, fresh mushrooms etc..
Ingredients : (serves 2-3)
1 pkt Enoki mushroom
few slices of carrots
2 strings of long beans, cut into 5-6cm length
few slices of sweet potatoes
Cooking oil for frying
More ice cubes / ice water
Batter :
4 tbsp rice flour
1 tbsp wheat flour
1 tbsp corn flour
pinch of salt & sugar
dash of white pepper
1/2 tsp baking powder
100 ml ice water
Step by Step :
1. Heat oil in the wok.
2. Mix all the flour in a bowl. Add in ice water & stir quickly to mix. Some lumps in the batter is fine & you are not suppose to over-mix it. Over mixing will cause gluten formation from the wheat flour & resulting in chewy texture.
3. After that, soak the batter bowl in a big bowl of ice water to keep the the batter cold.
4. Once the oil is hot, dip vegetables into the batter.
5. Then slowly drop into the oil for frying. Do not put too much & over-crowded the wok as this will lower the temperature of the oil.
6. Fry both sides till golden brown.
7. Remove & put on kitchen towel to absorb excess oil.
8. Ready to serve.
TIPS :
How to know the right texture of the batter ?
Too watery batter will not coat well as the batter doesn't stick well on the vegetables.
Too thick batter will cause thick coating of batter & resulting in chewy texture after frying.
Not only the batter consistency is important, the temperature of the cooking oil plays an important role too. How to know the right temperature?
Put a drop of the batter, it will sink & then will float up in within 5 seconds or almost immediately. This is good temperature.
If oil not hot enough, the batter will just sink & won't float.
DRY. The vegetables must be wiped dry with a kitchen towel before dipping into the batter.
