Welcome back to day 2 in Japan! I will be preparing tempura today which is a commonly found Japanese food outside of Japan. Despite the fact I had never had it before, my taste buds were ready!!
Tempura is traditionally various seafoods and vegetables deep fried and topped among a bed of short grain rice. The origins of deep frying food actually traces back to Portugal during the time of lent. The name tempura was mistakenly taken from the Latin words ad tempora cuaresme, which translates to in the time of lent. The Japanese had thought the original dish was named this and that is where the name tempura comes from.
Today’s recipe comes from the blog The Woks of Life. I was pretty excited (when am I not excited?) to try this dish. I am a huuuge fan of shrimp and will eat it every way it can be prepared. I wasn’t able to get fresh shrimp from the store that was wild caught, but frozen worked fine.
To be honest we thought it was too much of a good, greasy thing. We would have preferred the vegetables pan fried to add a contrast to the dish and make our tummies feel better. The shrimp was perfect and the sauce also paired well. Rice helped break up the grease, but overall there wasn’t too much seasoning that the recipe called for. I added salt and pepper after the fact, but I think mixing it into the batter would have been helpful. Although it looks super appealing, I would not recommend frying all the food. We rated the dish 5.5/10 for this reason. Next up is onigiri with miso soup, talk to you soon!