VoxVlog

At tempura restaurants, the chef fries the ingredients at a steady pace and places each piece in front of you as soon as it’s done so that it is hot and crisp. At home, though, that process doesn’t work well, at least, not if the cook wants to eat with the diners. So I have a non-traditional way of making tempura – I double-fry. The first frying cooks the ingredients and can be done in advance. Then, just before you want to serve the meal, fry the ingredients a second time, to heat them through and make the coating crisp. It’s not something I’d want to serve to a Japanese chef, but it works well for me.

When you make tempura udon, it is important to serve the two elements separately; I've had it at restaurants where the tempura is floating in the bowl of hot broth and noodles, which makes it soggy. The pleasure of a good bowl of tempura udon is giving the tempura just a brief dip into the soup, so it slightly softens the crust without saturating it.

Feel free to change the ingredients as you like: use fish fillets instead of shrimp (or make a vegetarian version with sliced firm bean curd). If you can't find kabocha squash then use sliced sweet potatoes instead; if you don't have maitake mushrooms (also known as hen of the woods) use enoki (leave them in small clumps attached at the base), while long slices of bell pepper are good if you don't have shishito peppers.

Dashi bags look like tea bags and contain ingredients such as kelp and dried bonito shavings, anchovies and kelp, and even powdered crab; there are vegetarian versions, too. Use whatever type you like.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51ksLC7yqKloGeimrCqvMRopaimXam%2ForDIraCoppGherWxzKmsq5ldqrGwuo6aqa2hk6GycH%2BPa21vcWc%3D