Tendon Tempura Rice Bowl

Ingredients

• 12 large raw prawns, peeled with tails on
• 1 small aubergine
• 200 g kabocha or butternut squash
• 4 shiso leaves
• 8 green beans
• 4 shiitake mushrooms
• 120 g cake flour or plain flour
• 2 tbsp potato starch
• 1 egg, cold
• 200 ml ice-cold sparkling water
• 2 tbsp extra flour, for dusting
• 1.5 litres vegetable oil, for frying
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 5 tbsp soy sauce
• 5 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp sake
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 3 tbsp dashi
• 800 g hot cooked short-grain rice

Before you cook

• Peel the prawns leaving the tail segment on, and devein them.
• Make three shallow cuts across the belly of each prawn and press it straight, which stops it curling as it fries.
• Pat the prawns completely dry with kitchen paper.
• Cut the aubergine lengthways into 1 cm wedges, stopping short of the stem so they fan out.
• Slice the kabocha into 5 mm crescents.
• Trim the shiitake stems and score a cross in each cap.
• Sift the cake flour and potato starch together into a bowl and put it in the fridge.
• Put the egg and the sparkling water in the fridge too, so everything is ice cold.

Steps

1. Put the soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar and dashi in a small pan.
2. Simmer the tare for 4 minutes, until it thickens very slightly and loses its raw alcohol smell, then pour it into a shallow bowl.
3. Pour the frying oil and the sesame oil into a deep, heavy pan and heat it to 175C.
4. Beat the cold egg into the cold sparkling water in a bowl.
5. Tip the chilled flour mixture into the liquid all at once and stir with chopsticks about eight times only, leaving obvious lumps and dry patches.
6. Dust the kabocha slices lightly with the extra flour and shake off the excess.
7. Dip the kabocha in the batter and lower it into the oil, frying for 3 minutes until pale gold.
8. Lift the kabocha onto a rack to drain.
9. Fry the aubergine, shiitake and green beans the same way, in batches, for about 2 minutes each.
10. Raise the oil to 180C.
11. Hold each prawn by the tail, dust it with flour, dip it in batter and slide it into the oil.
12. Fry the prawns for 90 seconds, flicking a little extra batter over them from your chopsticks to build crisp flakes.
13. Drain the prawns on the rack.
14. Dip a shiso leaf in batter on one side only and fry it for 20 seconds, so it stays green and translucent.
15. Fill four warmed bowls with 200 g of hot rice each.
16. Dip each piece of tempura briefly into the warm tare, letting the excess run off.
17. Pile the dipped tempura onto the rice, prawns on top.
18. Spoon a last teaspoon of tare over each bowl and serve immediately.