Tempura

 Tempura - an enjoyable summer battering

 

Fish and chips is one of the best things when the mood is right, although the batter can cause a food coma to come on rapidly and immediately after consumption. Fritto misto is also one of the best things when in Italy and by the sea. 

When the food coma is not an option [you need to do things/speak to people/move around freely] and you're not leisurely hunting for lunch on the Italian coastline I suggest applying a light tempura batter to anything that you have to hand.

In this instance I had half a courgette, leftover asparagus, quite a few small carrots and two squid in my kitchen.

Firstly, cut your veg and fish to size:

Carrot and courgette batons

Asparagus (whole)

Squid - cut into rings

Get a plate of cornflower to toss the veg in before it goes into your batter.

Make the batter by mixing 80g cornflower, 80g self-raising flour, 210ml sparkling water, 2 tsp rapeseed oil (I used olive oil), 1/4 tsp salt and whisk to get a smooth runny paste. 

You can add in and herbs and spices to flavour the batter – I split it and added lemon rind to half (to go on the squid, asparagus and courgette) and fennel seeds to the other half (for the mountain of carrots). Dip everything in the batter ready to go into the frying pan.

You then want to fry everything in batches so that it cooks evenly and does not stick together. I opted for shallow frying in about 300ml of vegetable oil. Get the oil hot in the pan on a high heat and then turn down to medium.

Piece by piece put the vegetables and squid into the pan without too much excess batter. Soft veg should take about 1 minute and harder veg like carrots 2 minutes. Remove and place on kitchen paper to get rid of unwanted oil.

There are lots of dipping sauces out there but on this occasion I went with lemon wedges and salt as it was supposed to be a quick lunch break!

One happy lunch buddy