Tempura (天ぷら) — Crispy Japanese Battered Seafood & Vegetables

Pat all vegetables and prawns completely dry with paper towels. Score the underside of each prawn through the flesh at 5 mm intervals — this releases the tendons and keeps them straight during frying. Lightly dust all ingredients with a thin coating of dry flour and shake off excess — this helps batter adhere and prevents steam explosions.

Combine dashi, soy sauce, and mirin in a small pot. Bring to a gentle simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. This is your dipping sauce — serve warm with grated daikon stirred in at the table.

Fill a deep, heavy pot to 8 cm depth with oil. Heat to exactly 175°C for vegetables, 180°C for prawns. Use a thermometer — temperature control is the difference between light and greasy tempura. Drop a small batter drip into the oil to test: it should sink slightly, sizzle immediately, then rise to the surface within 2 seconds.

In a chilled bowl over ice, whisk egg yolk into ice-cold sparkling water. Add flour all at once and stir with chopsticks just 3–4 times — leave large visible lumps. The batter should look like thin cream with dry flour bits visible. Make only what you can use in 5 minutes; the batter worsens rapidly as gluten develops.

Dip sweet potato, eggplant, and mushrooms one at a time into batter, letting excess drip off. Lower gently into oil using chopsticks or a spider. Fry in small batches — never fill the oil more than 30% with ingredients. Maintain 175°C. Fry sweet potato 3–4 minutes, eggplant 2 minutes, mushrooms 90 seconds. Remove when batter is very pale gold and crisp. Drain on a wire rack, never paper towels.

Increase oil to 180°C. Dip prawns tail-first into batter. For shiso leaves, batter only one side. Fry prawns 2–2.5 minutes until batter is set and very light blond — not golden. Drain on a rack. Sprinkle tiny drops of batter into the oil and let them adhere to frying pieces for extra laciness (the traditional tane-age technique).

Arrange tempura on a clean rack or paper-lined serving tray. Place tentsuyu dipping sauce and grated daikon alongside. Eat within 3 minutes of frying — tempura turns steamy and soft quickly. In restaurants, individual pieces are served one at a time directly from the fryer for this reason.