The Japanese have a love of abbreviations and so it is with this dish - "tendon" is the short form of "tempura donburi", meaning "tempura served on a bowl of rice".
As you probably know already, you can use most vegetables to create tempura - in this recipe, I used brocolli, red bell pepper, mushrooms and parsnip - the idea is to have a combination of colours and textures.
I paired the veggies with some king prawns. I used ready made Japanese tempura flour for the batter in this recipe - you can make your own tempura batter - so this is just a short cut. I have to admit, ready made tempura flour does provide a really nice, crispy and light batter - I used the "Showa" brand which contains wheat flour and starch, pumpkin powder, egg yolk powder and baking powder - there are other brands you can buy such as Oh-Mai.
This dish also boasts it's own sauce - you guessed it - tendon sauce! It's quite sweet and a little thick - it's also very easy to make.
Once your tempura is ready, just arrange it on a bowl of rice and drizzle over some sauce.
You can find the youtube tutorial by clicking Tendon or scroll to the bottom of the page. The written recipe is just below.
(If you are interested in a diy tendon sauce, you can find the Youtube tutorial for that here Tendon sauce or at the bottom of the page. The written recipe is below as well.
Happy frying! Kurumi XXXX.
For an alternative tendon dish, you need look no further than my Fillet of Cod Tendon. You can find the recipe for that dish here.
ingredients:
(makes 2 servings)
for the tempura:
400g-450g cooked Japanese rice
100g tempura flour
150ml water
80g parsnip
1/3 red pepper
2 tenderstem broccoli
2 fresh shiitake mushrooms,
4 king prawns
1 tbsp tempura or plain flour
vegetable oil for deep frying
some kitchen paper
how to:
slice the pepper in half
peel the parsnip and slice it into thin discs (this will ensure that they cook quickly to prevent the batter burning)
rinse the shiitake & broccoli and trim the stalk ends
make five incisions down the underside of the prawns & lightly press down to straighten them (this will stop the prawns curling up when you deep fry them)
coat the prawns with the plain flour
mix the tempura flour and water well in a bowl set aside
heat the veg oil to 180’C
dip the vegetables & prawns in the tempura mixture, then deep fry them until a light gold colour
(the parsnip will take longer, so reduce the heat a little and fry them longer)
deep fry the prawns until golden, adjusting the heat if necessary
arrange the tempura on a bowl of rice and drizzle over the sauce
(the tendon sauce recipe is below.)
ten-don sauce:
2 tbsp sugar
2.5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1/4 tsp Japanese dashi granules
40 ml water
put the sugar, soy sauce, mirin, water & dashi granules in a pan, bring to the boil and stir for 1-2 mins until the sauce has slightly thickened
(if you want to watch the short tutorial, it's at the bottom of the page.)
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