How Easy is Tempura? It’s ThisEasy!

Tempura is something I recently saw posted on a message board full of people’s “Things I don’t make because it’s too hard/I can get better at a restaurant”. But really, Tempura is incredibly easy. I just made it last week while the (still ongoing) proliferation of squash existed in my house. There is still half a delicata and an entire sugar pie pumpkin, so it shall continue.

My disclaimer on how easy this was is to add that I have no deep fryer nor have I ever deep fryed or battered anything before in my life.

Ingredients: 1 egg, 1 cup of ice cold water, 1 cup of flour, a whole lot of oil, assorted veggies (I used squash and broccoli)

Because I was only making a few small items, I heated my oil in a small saucepan on the stove. I was aiming to get it to 350F, but think it topped out at about 200. This didn’t really seem to make a difference. I beat the egg, then poured on the cold water, then whisked in the flour. I think my recipe could have used a few things: a larger egg, colder water and a tiny bit less water. I am thinking of trying this again, but with seltzer water. I think it might make the batter lighter.

I dropped items into the pot of oil, let them fry for a minute or two, depending on the size, and then pulled them out with a slotted spoon. From start to finish, it was maybe 15 minutes, and it was easy to do all the prep work while I waited for the oil to heat up.

I didn’t have the ingredients for a real tempura sauce, so I dipped these little guys in a mix of 2 parts ponzu, one part shoyu. Worked beautifully, even if it wasn’t the traditional sauce.

So next time you think tempura is hard or intimidating, give it a try first!

Gourd Tastic: Part 1–Delicata Fettucini

It’s fall here in the northwest and my favorite season to boot. The fun of fall vegetables never fails, as you can see in the previously posted pumpkin soup recipe. I also created a butternut squash ravioli that I unfortuantely didn’t manage to post about. But the fun never ends with gourds, as this weekend I ventured into new territory: Delicata squash and Pumpkin pie.

I don’t want to post the picture of the delicata fettucini I made because the picture does no justice to the tastiness of the meal itself. We came home from the pumkin patch starving and bearing a 2 large delicata squashes. The fun part of delicata is that you can eat the skin, so of course this (and the rush to eat) made me think that I could sautee it. I had never sauteed a squash before, so I tried at first to cut the pieces quite small, but after a taste fry, I realized it was going to be fairly quick to fry up, so I ended up cutting the onion and the squash as close to the width of the fettucini as possible in order to get some textural consistancy. I won’t say this is a top dish of all time, but I did think that it was great for starving squash bearing people who can’t handle waiting for the thing to roast in an oven.

Enough for two people, with leftovers:
1/4 large delicata squash
1/4 large white onion
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Oregano
Basil
1 package fresh fettucini (I loved how the tenderness of the fresh noodles played with the squash texture–just a touch more al dente, but you could sub out dried if neccesary)

Put the oil in the pan and sautee the squash and onion, adding the vinegar pretty early on to let it caramalize a bit in the pan. Add the herbs to taste at the end. Just as the veggies are getting ready to finish up, toss the pasta in the pot. When you pull it out, put it in to the pan with the veggies and toss them all together–this got the noodles totally coated with the vinegar and herbs, and made them taste terrific.

The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes.