How to make perfect 'lacy' tempura batter?

Question

How to make perfect 'lacy' tempura batter?

Answer 1

It is the COLD Seltzer water that helps to make this batter 'lacy'.

Tempura Batter

1 cup of flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2 cups cold seltzer water

Salt

Combine all ingredients. Use as batter for meats and vegetables.

WA

Answer 2

The trick of good tempura is the large temperature difference between the oil and the tempura. Take care therefore that all ingredients are ice-cold (keep in the freezer in between).

Heat the oil well. Mix the flour and the baking powder. Add just before you start frying the beaten cold egg white and as much ice-cold water until an yoghurt thickness mixture forms (leave litte lumps).

Coat the shrimps/veggies with the mixture and deep-fry them golden brown. Keep between frying rounds the batter in the fridge.Serve hot with for ponzu sauce.

Some other good tempura tips:

Try using kudzu flour, or powder, available at health food stores, instead of (or as half of) your rice flour.

Japanese restaurants use a cap full or two of sake in each batch. Apparently, this is a necessity.

Tips for Making Crispy/Lacy Tempura:

Tip 1: Ice

Use ice water for the batter. This is really important to prevent the batter from absorbing too much oil. (Do not make the batter ahead of time.)

Tip 2: Batter

Try not to over mix the batter and not to coat ingredients with the batter too much.

Tip 3: Frying Order

If you are frying both seafood and vegetables, fry vegetables first. Then, fry seafood. Fry vegetables at 340F degree and fry seafood at 350F degree.

Tip 4: Oil Temperature

To check the temperature of frying oil, drop a little batter into the oil. If the batter comes up right away instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan, it's about 360 F degree. If the batter goes halfway to the bottom and comes up, it's about 340F degree. This is said to be the right temperature to fry tempura.

Tip 5: Shrimp

Make a couple incisions on the stomach side of each shrimp so that it stays straight. Then, pick it up by the tail and dip the body part in the batter.

The secret to tempura's crispiness is in its batter coating or more precisely, the lumps, which are apt to form in the tenuous mixture of egg, ice water and flour. Because these ingredients remain unmixed, each morsel dipped to the bottom of the batter is coated in an egg-water-flour sequence. The batter must be made in small batches and not left to stand. If the flour is mixed too thoroughly moreover, the result will be an armorlike pancake casing, rather than the crispy coating the Japanese call a "cloak" or koromo. The Japanese claim that they can tell the difference between tempura made by a five-year "novice" and a 20-year veteran, so subtle is the chemistry at work in the tempura chef's powdery-ringed batter bowl.

Use thick chopsticks or fork & stir the batter in criss-cross motion. Batter may be slightly lumpy. Do not use eggbeater.

Ideal amount of oil is two-thirds full in the pan. Drop batter to test the temperature. It is ready when the drop of batter floats back to the surface after descending only halfway to the bottom. If the drop of batter reaches the bottom, the oil is not hot enough.

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