Best thing I've Tempura'd - Chive Blossoms

[tearingmonkey]

We had a finger food night of Japanese Pub food (Izakaya) at home the other night and decided to tempura the chive blossoms from our garden. They were fantastic. Crispy, oniony and peppery.
Best thing I've ever had with tempura.

Any other tempura success?

[kcfields]

If you like jalapenos, they are great deep fried! You can use fresh, raw jalapenos or canned (drained). I usually buy mushroom batter which you can get in the produce section of most grocery stores, it is essentially a tempura batter. Fried mushrooms and onion petals (thick slivers of raw onion) are also good. And the good thing is that if you don't eat it all at once you can refrigerate leftovers and heat in the oven at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes and they are just as good as when first fried!

[VikingKvinna]

Yum! Thank you. We always get at least one bunch of these from our CSA and beyond tossing a few in salads and making flavored vinegar, I'm at a loss for what to do with them each year.

My favorite thing to tempura are green onions (green part and all - probably tastes a lot like your chive blossoms) and sweet potato chunks.

[dfrostnh]

I have been tempted to try making tempura at home. Do you use an electric deep fryer? Can you save the oil for another use? TIA for your help.

[tearingmonkey]

I use an electric deep fryer on high setting and reuse my oil until it it dark coloured.
I should mention a warning when I deep fried the chive blossoms - one of the seeds popped while in the fryer and sent some hot oil with it. So stand back a bit or use your lid.

I also left on 5 inches of stem on so they looked like tempura lollipops.

[howchow]

fresh corn
avocado
green tomato slices

[fearlessemily]

This sounds fabulous -- do you have a batter recipe you're particularly happy with?

[tearingmonkey]

1 cup cake flour
1 tbspn cornstarch
1 cup cold water
2 ice cubes

The ice cubes keep the batter really cold which keeps the batter from getting too oily. Sometimes I have to add extra water if the batter is too thick.

to howchow: wow! avocado tempura - crispy and silky together sounds great

[Aravisea]

Do you think putting the bowl of batter inside another bowl with ice in it would keep the batter cold enough without the risk of over-diluting it?

[Zeldog]

I once asked a Japanese friend for advice on tempura and the conversation went something like this:

"What's a good recipe for making tempura batter?"

'Flour and very cold water.'

"Should I add..."

'Flour and very cold water!'

"How long should I..."

'FLOUR AND VERY COLD WATER!'

Years later I figured out that the key to good tempura is to not allow the gluten in the flour to develop, and the best way to do this is to use VERY COLD WATER. Using cake flour would also be good as it has lower gluten content than AP flour. Not mixing too long also would be good (whisk for 10-20 seconds, and if it still has a few lumps, let it be). As for recipes, some like the batter thick, some thin, so you need to do some trial and error to find a consistency that works for you.

[kcfields]

I agree. I looked up tempura batter recipes a while back and most said use ICE water. I found one on recipezaar.com that I call 1-1-1 - 1 cup flour, 1 egg, 1 cup ICE cold water. It worked wonderfully.

[karykat]

Were they fully bloomed? I've been putting the unopened blossoms in salads and tostadas and they're fantastic. Very oniony in a good way.

Now I have some that are fully opened.

[tearingmonkey]

yes, they were fully bloomed. When tempura'd they look like a beautiful crystaline entitiy.
I've also been tearing the blooms up and putting them in potato salad & green salads.