Cooley Family Farm

About a year ago some of our good friends (Ben and Mika) invited us over for potstickers at their home. They made a fun time of it and we all hung out in the kitchen with various jobs in preparing things. In addition to the potstickers they also made vegetable tempura. Everything was delicious!

I’ve really been craving the vegetable tempura. In particular I haven’t been able to get the tempura green beans off my mind!

So I decided that I wanted to make vegetable tempura so I could have some of those delicious green beans as well as experiment with some of the other vegetables that are currently being harvested.

We don’t eat fried food very often, but this is one of those dishes that is really fun to do every once in a while. And if you can share with family and friends and just hang out in the kitchen that’s even better!

The Batter Mix
1 large egg, cold
5 ounces iced water
1 cup of flour

Mix the batter and leave it lumpy. The batter should be a little thin. You can adjust the thickness based on preference by adding flour or water. Place the batter in the fridge until ready to use.

You can use a variety of vegetables. I used green beans, potatoes, eggplant, sweet banana peppers, and sweet onions.

I kept a bowl of ice water for placing the vegetables in as I cut them up. I’ve read that cold vegetables and batter placed in hot oil will produce a crisper tempura.

I snapped one end of the green beans, cut the potatoes and eggplant into thin circles (leaving skins on) no larger than 1/4 inch. I cut the banana peppers in half and removed the seeds. and the onions I had were small so I quartered them.

I used my wok for cooking the tempura. I put just enough canola oil in the wok to keep the vegetables from touching the bottom of the pan while they were cooking. Heat the oil and start dipping the vegetables in the batter and placing in the hot oil.

For me it was a little challenging to find the right heat setting. I have an electric range and it worked out best right around medium high heat. I turned the vegetables over with tongs until both sides were a light golden. Be especially careful with the hot oil as it can splatter. When the veggies were ready to be removed I put them on a wire rack over a cookie sheet so they could drain any excess oil, I then moved them onto a clean dish towel. Right before serving I put the tempura on a platter.

Kevin’s favorite was the green beans and potatoes. I was very surprised to find that my favorite was the banana peppers since I’m not usually a big pepper eater.

For dipping the tempura in I had side dish of soy sauce with a little sesame oil. Kevin liked his lightly salted. And we had a nice bowl of Japanese rice.

For my first try I think it was a success! We still had some batter and veggies left so I made some more as left overs the next day. I think the second batch turned out even better. The second night my results looked a little less golden than in the picture above. Either way… we enjoyed it both nights! I hope you give it a try!

-Tracy