Tempura Vegetables
top chef - marcel - tempura veg light batter can serve with a mayo-based or soty-based dipping sauce if desired Originally served as part of Top Chef Finalist.
Ingredients
- 1 small eggplant
- coarse salt
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
- 1 can 12 fluid ounces seltzer
- 6 2-inch zucchini
- 2 medium shallots
- for frying canola oil
Instructions
We start by cleaning and then slicing the eggplant. We sprinkle the slices with salt and place on a paper-towel lined plate to rest for an hour.
Meanwhile, we mix up the batter in a medium bowl. We whisk the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder together and then stir in the can of seltzer. When smooth, we cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until we are ready to fry.
While the batter rests and the eggplant firms up, we clean and trim the baby zucchini and peel and quarter the shallots. The vegetables are placed in a bowl.
We put our Dutch oven on the stove and put a few inches of oil in it for frying. We turn on the heat to medium and put a deep-fat fry thermometer into the oil. We want the oil to reach 350° to start frying.
When the eggplant have been salted for an hour we pat ech slice fry with paper towels and add to the bowl for prepared vegetables.
When the oil is hot enough, we dip, using clean hands, a vegetable into the batter lightly coating it and then add carefully to the hot oil. We repeat for just a few vegetable pieces and then wash our hands well. Using our "spider" strainer, we flip the vegetables around in the oil. We want them golden and tender. This takes about 3 minutes.
We remove the tempura to a clean paper towel lined plate and sprinkle with salt. We repeat the frying with additional pieces, waiting each time for the temperature to reach 350° again.