Tempura

Tempura is a Japanese dish of seafood and vegetables coated in a thin batter and quickly deep-fried. The technique came from Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century and has become one of the best-known dishes of Japanese cuisine.

History

The most widely accepted account links tempura to Portuguese Jesuit missionaries active in Nagasaki, a city the Portuguese had founded in 1569. They brought a method of coating food in flour and egg and the custom of eating fish and vegetables on days of abstinence during Lent and the Ember Days, which is why the name is often traced to the Latin tempora. Another proposal derives it from the Portuguese word tempero, meaning seasoning.

Early versions had a sweetened batter with sake and were fried in lard. Around the early seventeenth century, in the Tokyo Bay area, the recipe changed: the batter used only flour, egg and water, was mixed minimally to stay crisp, and was sold at riverside food stalls near the fish market. This Edo-style version is the basis of today's tempura. After the Meiji period it moved from street food to high-class cuisine.

The dipping sauce, tentsuyu, combines dashi, mirin and soy sauce, and is often served with grated daikon. Some chefs credit Marco Polo's arrival in China with the technique, but this claim is hard to verify.

Culture

Tempura is eaten hot, in bite-sized pieces, dipped in sauce just before each bite. It may be served alone or in dishes such as tendon, over rice, or tempura udon and tempura soba. Common ingredients include prawns, squid, white fish, sweet potato, pumpkin, eggplant, pepper and shiso leaves. Vegetable-only versions, called yasai tempura, suit vegetarians.

Presentation matters, with colour combinations that make each ingredient stand out. Loose batter bits, called tenkasu, are skimmed from the oil between batches and reused in other dishes. In Taiwan, the word tiambula refers to a different dish with different ingredients, sold at fast-food shops.

Trivia