Ingredients
- 2 cups of medium grain rice
- 1 l vegetable oil
- tin of Valcom water chestnut slices
- 4 blocks of Evergreen regular firm tofu
- 8 small Shiitaki mushrooms
- 1/2 red capsicum
- 1 medium size carrot
- 1 medium size onion
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin seasoning
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp water
- green tea powder (optional)
- pickled ginger slices or gari (optional)
- sea weed or nori strips (optional)
- 50 g all purpose flour
- 50 g cornstarch + 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tbsp Kewpie mayonnaise
- 150 ml ice cold water
- ice cubes
Method
- Wash rice, cook in rice cooker.
- Pour vegetable oil in deep frying pan half full to prevent oil from overflowing when deep frying. Heat up oil.
- Prepare part of tempura batter. Add ice cubes to water, refrigerate for about 5 min.
- Cut vegetables in similar shape and size. Slice onion, water chestnut, tofu, mushroom, capsicum and carrot, or any other leftover vegetables. I used dried Shiitaki mushroom, soaked for 1 hour, or use fresh Shiitaki mushroom when available. Mix vegetables and tofu in bowl, refrigerate.
- Sift flour and cornstarch twice, add ice cold water (excl. ice cubes) and (egg-based) mayonnaise, which I used as a substitute since I ran out of eggs. Mix batter with chopsticks, don't overmix, batter can be lumpy. Refrigerate if not using straight away, batter needs to stay cold to slow down gluten forming to promote a crispier fry.
- Coat vegetables in 3 tbsp cornstarch prior to dipping in batter, deep fry in oil at 170 degrees for around 4 min. depending on the thickness of the vegetables/tofu mix, flip halfway carefully, and fry until slightly golden.
- Combine soy sauce, mirin, maple syrup and water in a sauce pan and heat up mixture slightly.
- Serve this water chestnut kakiage tempura with white rice and dipping sauce. Enjoy your crispy, meat-free meal!
Product used in recipe
- Valcom - Valcom Water Chestnut Sliced
