Vegetable Tempura

Vegetable Tempura Fries that's just as crispy and light as you get it from (a good) restaurants. I actually think it's better than most restaurants. Use the same batter recipe to make shrimp and other tempuras.

Prep time: PT25M

Cook time: PT30M

Total time: PT50M

Rating

5 stars (3 reviews)

Keywords

bunsik, crispy, deep fried, party food

Ingredients

1/2 large yellow onion ((sliced))
1 Korean sweet potato ((Goguma 고구마) mediium sized, or 1 C french fry-sized strips)
2 carrots ((small to medium, 1 C french fry-sized strips))
1 green onion ((bunch))
1 cup flour (all-purpose)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp sea salt ((optional))
1/8 tsp baking powder
1 egg
270 ml ice cold water ((+ 3 ice cubes for extra light n crispy))
1.25 cup flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 egg
300 ml ice cold water
1 tsp sea salt
6 cups vegetable or canola oil for deep frying

Cuisine

Korean

Steps

Peel sweet potatoes and carrots. Cut them into thin french-fry sized match sticks. The potato and carrot sticks should be cut roughly the same thickness because you want them to both cook evenly.
Clean and cut both green onions and onions so that they are roughly similar in length to potato and carrots. Onions cook quicker so they can be a little thicker.
Add all the vegetables into a large bowl and toss with hand.
Heat oil: Heat about 6 cups of vegetable or canola oil for deep frying on medium high heat until it reaches roughly 335 - 350 F. See my tips above on measuring temp of oil without a thermometer.
Make batter - add all batter ingredients and mix until they are no big lumps. Do NOT overmix. If adding ice cubes, DO NOT add them until you are all ready to start frying. You want to keep this batter cold so do not wait too long before using it.
Add vegetables to batter and mix to coat evenly. I use long chopsticks or hands - this works best.
Fry them! By now, your oil should be hot enough. The oil temperature should be around 340 -355 ℉ (170-180 ℃). Best to start at 355 because it will cool down once you add your vegetables. Keep the heat between med-high and medium and it should work.

Nutitrion

Serving Size: 1 serving
Calories: 326 kcal
Carbohydrates: 28 g
Protein: 4 g
Fat: 23 g
Saturated Fat: 18 g
Cholesterol: 27 mg
Sodium: 269 mg
Sugar: 2 g

Reviews

John Doe on 2020-11-09 (5 stars):
I accidentally left out the egg and OMG it was awesome, used sweet potato, dill pickle slices, broccoli and sweet onions and my wife called it tempura crack as she devoured it, so leaving the egg out sort of also worked and it was super crunch, she loved that.
Kat on 2020-10-30 (5 stars):
Hello and thank you for a great crispy vegetable batter. I have tried and tried other recipes and yours works. I always have onions carrots and zucchini on hand so that is what I used. I made matchstick cuts of the zucchini then squeezed the juice out of them with a potato ricer. Simply delicious batter and so easy. It will be my tempura batter to go to from now on!!
Mariana on 2020-10-29 (5 stars):
Thank you so much for sharing this. I was looking to make a recipe like the vegetable bird nest from TJ and I change some of the ingredients like cassava starch and Seltzer instead of water and baking soda. I used the espiralizer to cut the vegetables. The came up absolutely delicious, better than I expected. Crunchy texture and flavorful.