Japanese pen name: てんぷら

ROMAGI: Tempra

Tempura is a fried food in Japanese cuisine. It is made of flour, eggs and water. Fresh fish, shrimp and seasonal vegetables are wrapped in starch and fried in oil pan until golden brown. When eating, dip in soy sauce and radish sauce to make juice, which is delicious, fragrant but not greasy. It is not the name of a specific dish, but the general name of fried food. The specific types are vegetable tempura, seafood tempura, assorted tempura and so on.

The history of tempura

Tempura has a long history. てんぷら originated from tempura in Portugal, which means "hurry up". At that time, in order to get food to satisfy hunger faster, the Portuguese used this fried cooking method during Lent (a Christian festival, meaning six and a half weeks before Easter). During lent, it is forbidden to eat meat, while the Portuguese eat fish. Latin "ad tempora quadragesimae" means "keep fasting". A.D.16th century was introduced to Japan by Portuguese missionaries, and then it became popular in Japan.

According to Japanese literature, in A.D. 1669, Kyoto doctor Okura mentioned tempura in his book Esophagus. Japanese tempura is a traditional fried seafood or vegetable wrapped in starch (flour, etc.). Tianhe No.2 (1682) Japan received a visiting North Korean envoy, and later found the records of entertaining the envoy in the museum, including the records of making tempura with chicken. However, the tempura referred to at that time was different from the tempura popular in Japan. In the past, fish, chicken, vegetarian dishes and other raw materials were processed into certain shapes and then fried in oil, so they could not be eaten directly. Instead, it is the process of processing semi-finished raw materials, which can be used as raw materials for steaming, boiling, burning or making soup. Tempura now refers to fried food that can be eaten directly after seasoning, gelatinization and then frying. The latter method originated from the Edo period in Japan, and the book Composition of Cuisine published in the fourth year (1747) introduced in detail the method of frying tempura food with ointment. With the increase of oil varieties and the continuous updating of frying technology, tempura series foods have become an important part of Japanese cuisine and the most acceptable Japanese food for ordinary people all over the world. Now there are many specialty stores in Japan dealing in tempura.

Raw materials for making tempura

When making tempura in Japan, there is also a saying that "three-point technology and seven-point sorting materials". Because the seasoning of Japanese cuisine is mainly light and pays great attention to highlighting the flavor of raw materials, the freshness of raw materials is the primary criterion for selection. In addition, materials are selected according to the specific requirements of tempura production. Generally, raw materials with too much fat or too sour taste are not selected, and hard-shelled shellfish and sweet fruits are not suitable. The shell is hard, fried and eaten, the fruit has high sugar content, and the tempura paste is very thin, which makes the fruit easy to enlarge when fried. Although most other raw materials can be selected, Japan also attaches great importance to seasonal characteristics and chooses characteristic raw materials in different seasons. For example, soft-shelled turtle, whitebait, fragrant fish, prawn, cauliflower, chrysanthemum leaf, cherry leaf, fresh bamboo shoot, asparagus and onion in spring. Are generally selected; Choose eggplant, edamame, pumpkin, wax gourd, perilla leaf and amaranth leaf in summer; Choose ginkgo, shellfish, conch, eel, cuttlefish, oyster, persimmon, dried banana and crab meat in autumn. In addition, raw materials such as tofu, dried prunes and steamed bread can be used in all seasons. Of course, the raw materials should be pickled and seasoned before frying. Generally, dried fish sauce, soy sauce, dried seaweed juice and other seasonings should be used to flavor or deodorize.

Paste mixing method

In order to highlight the original flavor of the raw materials, tempura is usually made into thin paste when it is hung, and all the raw materials are generally required to be wrapped in paste when Chinese food is hung. Tempura, especially tempura made of green leafy vegetables, can also see the wrapped raw materials. Sometimes the leaves have paste on one side and almost no paste on the other. For tempura made of fish or prawns, although the raw materials are covered with paste, it is only a thin layer. This is also a major feature of Tempura. Paste is generally made of flour, eggs and water, in which the flour with low gluten content is below 10%, and the ratio between them is egg 15%, flour 35% and water 50%.

Frying method

There is a lot of oil to fry tempura. It used to be sesame oil, cottonseed oil and soybean oil. At present, peanut oil or salad oil is widely used, because the fragrance of sesame oil, cottonseed oil and soybean oil is strong, which will affect the flavor of raw materials. Although salad oil tastes light, it is not fragrant enough, so many restaurants use sesame and salad oil together. The ratio of sesame oil to salad oil is generally 20: 80. Frying temperature is the key to making tempura. Because the paste concentration is thin, the paste will fall off when the oil temperature is low, and the raw materials will become thin when the oil temperature is high, so the oil temperature must be controlled at about 175 ~ 180 degrees when making, and the temperature range should be adjusted according to the amount of raw materials invested. After frying each batch of raw materials, remove the broken paste from the pot and fry the raw materials when the oil temperature reaches 175 ~ 180℃. Sometimes the shape of raw materials is relatively small, and it is more troublesome to fry them one by one. You can use a flat die to fry the raw materials and paste them in oil, and then take them out to make round cakes when they are cooked.

Seasoning method

Tempura is generally seasoned in stages with mixed seasonings. The first stage is pickling and seasoning before frying, and the second stage is seasoning with seasoning plate after frying. Generally, the seasonings before frying are mainly dried pine fish juice, soy sauce and dried seaweed juice. After frying, a small amount of sugar and radish sauce are added to the dried pine fish juice, soy sauce and dried seaweed juice and mixed evenly for guests to dip in. Tempura also has different schools in Japan due to different regions, such as Kanto School. The oil used for cooking is mainly sesame oil, and the surface is not smooth. The seasoning is mixed sauce. The Kansai region is dominated by cottonseed oil, the finished product is soft, and the seasoning is mostly salt. In Kyushu, soybean oil and peanut oil are mainly used for seasoning, and the raw juice is mainly used for seasoning. Other regions also have their own tempura dishes. Tempura: In Japanese cuisine, dishes fried with batter are collectively called tempura. There are dishes that can be eaten at simple meals and banquets. The cooking method of tempura comes from China and its name comes from Holland, with a history of about 150 years. The most important cooking method of tempura is the making of batter. Egg batter is the most common in tempura. The prepared batter is called tempura clothes, and the flour used for noodle clothes is called thin powder in Japanese. It's flour with less gluten. Tempura vermicelli made from this batter is thin and crisp. The best water for mixing batter in summer is ice water. Tempura raw materials can be roughly divided into three categories. 1。 Seafood tempura; 2。 Vegetable tempura; 3。 Poultry tempura tempura is fried in various ways. The most common is egg batter frying, as well as spring rain frying, golden girl frying, intensive farming frying, rock side frying, hakata frying and so on. (Mainly the batter or some side dishes). There are generally three standards for tempura production: the paste should be thin, the oil should be clean, and the crispness should be fragrant.