About the Recipe
This is a classic tempura donburi ("tendon" for short) that you will find in every tempura restaurant in Japan. Along with the prawns, I used broccoli, parsnip, pepper and mushrooms, so not only is this dish delicious, it's healthy too!
Ingredients
for ten-don sauce:
2 tbsp sugar
2.5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1/4 tsp japanese dashi granules
40 ml water
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
Preparation
to make the tendon sauce:
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
to make the tempura:
cut the pepper in half and deseed
peel the parsnip and slice it into thin discs
rinse the shiitake & broccoli and trim the stalk ends
make five incisions down the inside of each prawns and 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 / 350F - to test that the oil is hot enough, drop a small piece of tempura batter into the pan. if the batter bubbles and floats to the surface, you are ready to go.
dip the vegetables & prawns in the tempura mixture, then deep fry them until a light gold colour (the parsnip will take a little longer, so reduce the heat a little and fry them longer)
deep fry the prawns until golden, adjusting the heat if necessary - they should take 2 - 3 minutes
now that your tempura is ready, fill two serving bowls with Japanese rice. next, arrange the tempura on the rice and finally, drizzle over the tendon sauce