Tempura

• 1. Introduction

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  Tempura, the Japanese dish of seafood and vegetables dipped in a thin batter and fried, reaches the plate pale, feathery and loudly crunchy. Nothing about that delicate surface hints at where it came from. The name sounds oddly European for a dish so tied to Japan. Its first big audience ate it standing outdoors, not seated at a table. And the best cooks stir the batter so little that it stays lumpy on purpose. This documentary follows those puzzles through the people, rules and kitchens that shaped the dish.

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• 2. Fasting Days

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  Toward the end of the 16th century, cooks in Nagasaki learned a new trick from Portuguese missionaries. Jesuits had arrived through the Nanban trade carrying a Western habit of coating food in flour and frying it. Until then, Japanese deep-frying meant cooking food bare, or with a dusting of rice flour.

  The missionaries had a religious reason for the dish. Catholics followed rules of fasting and abstinence during Lent and on Ember days. Fried vegetables fit those rules, and a Portuguese dish called peixinhos da horta served exactly that purpose.

  The name itself may trace to that calendar. Missionaries used the Latin word tempora, meaning times, for the Lenten period and the Ember days. On Ember days, which Latin called quatuor anni tempora, Catholics skipped meat and ate fish or vegetables. Fridays and other holy days were covered by the same word.

  A rival explanation is possible. The Portuguese noun tempero means a seasoning, and the verb temperar means to season. Japanese speakers could have taken tempero over without changing a single vowel, because the pronunciation is so close.

  Peixinhos da horta still exists in Portugal. Its name means garden fishes, and it is made from green beans dipped in batter and fried.

  The first Japanese version looked quite different from what diners know now. The coating was thick, made with flour, sugar and sake, and the pieces were fried in lard. Since the batter carried its own flavor, nobody bothered with a dipping sauce.

  In southern Japan, the word grew beyond its first meaning. People used it for nearly any food cooked in hot oil, even dishes that already existed. Within a few decades, though, the recipe would move to the shores of Tokyo Bay and lose almost all of that richness.

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• 3. Edo Food Stalls

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  In the early 17th century, food carts called yatai became popular around the Tokyo Bay area, and tempura changed to suit them. Cooks stripped the recipe down to flour, eggs and water, with no flavoring in the batter. The goal was to protect the delicate taste of fresh seafood.

  Most tempura in Japan today descends from the Tokyo style, also called Edo style. It was invented at food stalls beside the riverside fish market during the Edo period. Seafood was abundant there. Meanwhile, better oil extraction techniques made cooking oil cheaper, so frying became affordable.

  The street setting was partly a matter of law. Frying indoors was prohibited in Edo, because hot oil threatened buildings made of paper and wood. So tempura became fast food sold at outdoor stalls, skewered and served with a dipping sauce.

  It shared that status with two neighbors. Tempura is counted among the Edo Delicacies alongside soba, the buckwheat noodles, and sushi. All three began as take-out food from stalls.

  The modern recipe first appeared in print in 1671, in a cookbook titled 料理献立抄. After the Meiji period, the stall snack stopped being thought of as fast food and developed into high-class cuisine.

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• 4. The Lumpy Batter

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  Iced water, eggs and soft wheat flour make up the batter. Cake flour, pastry flour or all-purpose flour will do. Some cooks add baking soda or baking powder for lightness, and sparkling water in place of plain water gives a similar lift.

  The mixing is where the skill lies. Traditionally the batter is made in small batches, stirred with chopsticks for only a few seconds. That leaves lumps in the bowl. Together with the cold temperature, the lumps produce the fluffy, crisp structure that defines the dish.

  Cold is maintained deliberately. Cooks drop in ice, or set the batter bowl inside a bigger bowl filled with ice.

  The reason is gluten, the protein in wheat. Stirring too long wakes it up, and the coating turns soft and doughy in the fryer. Minimal mixing in cold water is what avoids that stickiness, and it explains the crisp texture the dish is known for.

  Home cooks have a shortcut. Supermarkets sell tempura flour made for the job, usually a light, low-gluten flour that sometimes contains a leavener such as baking powder.

  The batter never contains seasoning. At most, some recipes suggest rinsing seafood in salt water first.

  One boundary is firmly drawn in Japan. Tempura has no breadcrumb coating. Foods coated in panko and fried are called furai, a Western-style category invented in Japan. Tonkatsu, the fried cutlet, and ebi furai, the fried prawn, belong there.

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• 5. Oil and Scraps

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  Thin slices or strips of food go into the batter and then into hot oil for a short time. Vegetable oil and canola oil are the usual choices today. Traditionally, though, sesame oil was used for tempura.

  Many specialty shops still fry in sesame oil or in tea seed oil. The source says certain compounds in these oils are thought to help the batter turn out light and crisp.

  Between batches, cooks have a chore that protects the whole meal. Loose bits of batter, called tenkasu, drift through the oil. If left, they burn and leave a bad flavor behind. A small mesh scoop known as an ami jakushi lifts them out.

  The scraps are not wasted. Tenkasu are often saved for other dishes, or sprinkled on top as a topping.

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• 6. What Gets Fried

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  The seafood list begins with prawn, known as ebi tempura, and also includes shrimp, squid, scallop and crab. Ayu, the sweetfish, and anago, the conger eel, appear as well. Kisu, the Japanese whiting, is another favorite.

  The range of fish is wide. Cod, haddock, pollock, coley, plaice, skate, ray, whiting, sea bass and sea perch all take the batter. So does catfish. Then there is huss, a name covering several dogfish species, including the spiny dogfish. It is also sold as rock salmon.

  Vegetable tempura has its own name, yasai tempura. A plate made only of vegetables can be served as a vegetarian dish.

  The vegetable list runs from familiar to unusual. It includes sweet potato, pumpkin, kabocha squash, eggplant, okra and green beans. Shiso leaf, bamboo shoots, seaweed and Japanese mugwort turn up too. Mushrooms such as shiitake and maitake are common. Renkon, the lotus root, and gobo, the burdock root, add crunch. Egg is sometimes fried too.

  One form blends the two categories. Kakiage is made from mixed vegetable strips, such as onion, carrot and burdock, sometimes with shrimp or squid. These are fried as small round fritters.

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• 7. At the Table

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  Grated daikon, a white radish, often sits beside tempura, and the pieces are eaten hot, straight from the fryer. Diners then choose how to season them. They can dip the pieces in sauce, dust them with salt, or turn them into part of a larger dish.

  The most common sauce is tentsuyu. Its proportions are roughly three parts dashi, one part mirin and one part shōyu. Plain sea salt is the alternative. Other salts are blended with powdered green tea, or with yuzu.

  Tempura also lives inside noodle and rice dishes. On buckwheat noodles it becomes tempura soba, also called tensoba. Over steamed rice in a bowl, with shrimp and vegetables, it is tendon. On a bowl of udon soup, it becomes tempura udon. In Japanese noodle soups, the topping might be shrimp, a shiso leaf, or a fritter.

  Restaurants that specialize in the dish are called tenpura-ya. Many other places offer it in a set meal or a bento lunch box. Convenience store bento boxes include it as well.

  Practice varies across the country. Whatever the region, cooks stress fresh, seasonal ingredients.

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• 8. Beyond Japan

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  Outside Japan, and lately inside it, chefs treat tempura as a flexible idea. Menus around the world feature broccoli, zucchini, asparagus and chuchu in batter. More daring versions use nori slices, dried fruit such as bananas, and even ice cream, in a tempura-based fried ice cream.

  American restaurants are known for serving batter-fried chicken and other meats, as well as cheeses, usually mozzarella. Tempura shrimp is a popular filling in makizushi rolls. A newer twist dips whole pieces of sushi in batter and fries them.

  In Bangladesh, cooks fry the blossoms of pumpkins or marrows with a spice mix made from rice flour. The result is a Bengali cousin of tempura called kumro ful bhaja.

  Taiwan has two relatives. The tempura just described is known there as tiānfùluó, written 天婦羅, and appears on Japanese restaurant menus across the island. A similar-sounding dish, tianbula, is usually sold at night markets.

  Tianbula is satsuma-age, a fried fish cake made from surimi and cooked without batter. People from Kyushu introduced it to Taiwan under Japanese rule. In Kyushu, and in western Japan more generally, satsuma-age is commonly called tempura, which shows how far the name has traveled from the Latin word for times.

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