How To Make Classic Shrimp Tempura At Home

Everybody has that one food that they could eat their weight in .

Personally , for me it's , um , it's a lot of things , but one in particular is this ok .

So tempura shrimp , most of you , I should have a rough idea of what this is arguably the best way to have a fried shrimp to eat a shrimp .

A scrap .

This is delicious , no matter how you eat it , you know , you can fry it up , season it and just shove it in your mouth safely safely and just eat it like that and it's great .

Or if you have some sushi making skills , you could roll it up in a roll and have one of those , uh , doggy rolls .

That doesn't sound right .

Shaggy dog .

Yeah , it's not , not a traditional roll .

Uh , by any means as far as I know .

Ok , I'm not gonna lie .

It tastes good .

There's not much else to say .

Let's just make this thing , shall we ?

Ok .

So first thing you need to do is make your tempura batter , start off by cracking one whole egg into a medium sized bowl .

Just give that a nice little whisk until it's broken up and homogenized .

Then while whisking stream in one cup or 236 mL of cold carbonated water .

That's right .

Carbonated water .

I'm not sure that this is hyper traditional , but it does give it a nice lightness to the fry .

Then just to keep the batter cold , go ahead and drop in 3 to 4 ice cubes .

You need your batter , ice cold .

Next , you're gonna add a quarter teaspoon or one g of baking soda to one cup or 100 and 50 g of all purpose flour .

Give that a nice little mix and until everything's evenly incorporated , then sift your flour mixture directly into your egg mixture , you know , and be sure to make a little mess like this too , really nice .

Now , using chopsticks , mix all this just until it starts to come together , there should be a little lumines to the mixture .

You don't wanna overmix this by trying to hydrate all the flour or you'll overwork the gluten and totally ruin the way that it fries .

So that's really important here .

It should drift from your hands almost like heavy cream .

So if it doesn't , then you could always just add an quarter cup or 60 mL of carbonated water that's cold by the way .

So next , you're gonna need some shrimp .

Now , the first thing is they need to be peeled and deveined .

You can absolutely have your fishmonger do this for you or you can do it yourself .

It's very very easy .

Now , this is actually not a normal shrimp .

This is a tiger prawn , which is technically different , but also pretty similar in terms of flavor .

Now , usually I would cut a line down the top of them to pull the vein out , but it looks like the fishmonger had already done that here .

So I went ahead and just pulled the vein out and then grab the shell and literally peel it right off it .

It is that easy .

You'll then use the back part of your knife just to lightly scrape the tailpiece of each shrimp just to get a little bit of that dirt out of there if there is any , of course .

Ok .

So now here's our issue .

Most shrimp are well naturally curved and when they fry , they curve even more .

Now , most shrimp tempura is straight .

So the first thing we need to do is just make tiny , tiny , little scores along the length of the underbelly of the shrimp .

Really , really , really light scores don't go too deep .

Some of these scores are actually a little deep on this uh in this shot .

But you're then gonna do the same thing on both sides of each shrimp .

Now , make sure that these are extra , extra light .

You're really just doing this to remove the tightness of the shrimp .

That way it sort of flows a little better in the direction that you want it to .

And you can just lightly squeeze it and just ever so gently pull it apart and it should elongate and straighten out .

Nicely .

Think of it more like massaging it and gently wheeling it in the direction that you want it to go .

You do not want to tear this thing and break it apart .

Once you're done , it should be nice and flat and well , kind of limp unlike this guy over here .

Now , once you've done that with all your shrimp , you're ready to fry , start by feeling a medium size , heavy bottom pot , a little above halfway , which should be about three inches worth of oil .

So make sure that your pot is big enough to accommodate all that .

You don't want it to overflow or anything like that because that's a big danger .

Then insert a fry oil or candy thermometer into your oil just so that we can monitor the temperature .

You really need to keep an eye on that .

There'll be a link below in the description for what I use .

Then just heat that oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 and 75 degrees Celsius .

Once your oil is at temperature dredge your shrimp in all purpose flour and then dip it in the batter , making sure it gets totally covered , then lower the shrimp slowly and gently into the hot oil while making sort of a gentle swirl motion at the same time .

This helps keep the shrimp nice and straight .

So don't skip that .

Now , we could just fry it like this .

But we're also gonna add some extra crispiness by dipping our non dominant hand into batter and then allowing the batter to drip from our hand and onto the shrimp as we slowly rotate the shrimp to coat it evenly around its surface .

This technique makes a huge difference in the final crispiness of the tempura .

So it'll take some practice , but I promise you it's worth it and don't forget to clean out the Tempura flakes in your oil .

You don't want it to become overcrowded with all that stuff .

And I'd also recommend using a stock skimmer rather than this spider .

It didn't do a very good job , then just keep repeating that process until you fried all of your shrimp .

Now , you know , of course , you can fry 2 to 3 shrimp if you feel comfortable doing that , but I would recommend starting with one .

Then as they finish frying place them on a wire rack , fit it on a baking sheet just to allow them to cool a little bit .

And then if you're serving them with a dipping sauce , then I like to just season them with a little bit of salt and Togashi and then serve them with a dipping sauce .

Now , to make that tempura sauce , you're gonna pour one cup or 236 mL of water in a small sauce pot , two pieces of combo about three inches each or five g .

Then just bring that up to a steamy heat .

Do not allow this to come to a boil just a steamy heat , almost like a tea and let it sit at that steamy heat for 12 minutes .

Once the 12 minutes is up , you can go ahead and remove and discard the combo .

And then to that sort of combo tea , you're gonna add half a cup or five g of bonito flakes .

So we're sort of making like a light dashi here .

Then keep that at a steamy heat as proof by my glasses here for another eight minutes .

Then just strain it through a mesh strainer .

Be sure to press out all the liquid that might be trapped in between all the Bonito flakes .

Then to that , you'll add a quarter cup or 60 mL of soy sauce and a quarter cup or 60 mL of then just give that a little mix and you've got tempura sauce , that's it .

Now , traditionally , this would be served hot with a little bit of grated icon in it .

So you can absolutely do that if you want .

And also you can totally make this stuff way ahead of time .

You can make this up to three days ahead of time and that's it .

Trim Tempura , all the ingredients that you might not know will be linked to my description .

And yes , I did double dip .

You know what , I'm really gonna double dip the B roll .

All right .

Guys .

And that is it .

I mean , like , what do you want me to say ?

It's fried shrimp .

It's , it's gonna be good .

It , even if it's not perfect , it's still going to be really tasty .

So who doesn't like fried shrimp ?

Unless you're one of those people that doesn't like shrimp ?

It's fine .

I'm not judging you just close your eyes but don't forget to smash that like button .

That felt , that felt gross .

Don't forget to keep D M me and sending me what kind of things you want to see on fermentation Friday on Instagram , which by the way , the links to my Twitter Instagram , all that jazz is going to be down below in the description .

Really been appreciating what you guys have been sending .

There's a lot of ideas that I want to do , but again , your input is much appreciated .

But with all that said , if you enjoyed this video or you learned something , leave a like subscribe and I will see you next time .