Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Time for tempura
Traditional and modern recipes for the Japanese favorite
No one knows for sure the origins of the Japanese word “tempura,” but one theory is my favorite.
The word is written with three picture characters: Ten, which is also the first part of the word for heaven; pu indicates a woman; and ra is a type of woven silk gauze.
Put them all together, and you end up with something like “woman clad in silk gauze, giving a glimpse of heaven.”
That may be outdated, but it’s not a bad description of tempura — a delicious nibble fried in a light, gauzelike coating.
Tempura is all about the lightness of the coating; the more ethereal the better. It should be delicate and crisp, almost melting in your mouth.
What goes inside the coating is equally important, and the possibilities are close to endless. Tempura cooks for only a few short minutes — any longer and that gossamer coating will burn — but just about anything can be cooked this way.
Shrimp is a classic. So are small or thin vegetables. Thin-sliced steak is popular, and also Alaskan king crab legs.
The traditional batter is exquisitely simple: one cup of flour, one cup of water and one egg, though some add baking powder and a bit of sugar.
A more modern update uses cornstarch in place of flour for a crispier crust and replaces the water with club soda, on the theory that the bubbles make the batter lighter.
I also checked out J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, who uses science to make cooking better. He agrees that the best tempura uses club soda and as much cornstarch as flour.
But he also suggests an ingredient I never would have considered: vodka. It limits the development of gluten in the batter, he writes, which keeps the batter lighter for longer.
The traditional batter is the thickest of the bunch. It is the only one that is given time — 15 minutes — to set and thicken.
The biggest distinction in the traditional batter appears to come from its small amount of sugar.
The difference in taste is extremely subtle, if not nonexistent, but the sugar clearly makes the crust a bit browner. This slightly darker tempura is more visually appealing than its pale and wan rivals.
The Lopez-Alt sciencebased version of tempura was lighter (in texture as well as color) than the traditional method, and more shatteringly crisp. It probably came closer to the ultimate tempura ideal.