Wendell's Shrimp Tempura

I'm still kinda recuperating from the late night on New Year's eve, so I decided to just focus on one dish from my family's New Year's Day gathering for today's post. They'll be more pictures later. Since our theme was Japanese, Wendell made some shrimp tempura.


I actually prepped the shrimp yesterday afternoon for Wendell. For tempura you gotta get the shrimp long and skinny so that it doesn't curl up. You know how when you stir fry shrimp it shrivels up into a "C". You don't want the "C" for tempura right? The secret is you gotta break up the tendons. Landon taught me this. First you cut tiny shallow slits along the inside of the shrimp (where the legs were before shelling). Then place the shrimp inside down onto a cutting board. With thumb, forefinger and middle finger of both hands, press down on the shrimp until you feel the snap, pressing, pressing, pressing down the whole length of the shrimp. Sorry I couldn't get a shot of how I did it, but as rough as I am on my camera, I didn't want it getting all shrimpy.



Wendell took everything outside to cook so that the kitchen wouldn't get all oily from the splatter. First he dipped the shrimp into flour.


Then dunked into a batter of 1/2 c flour, 1/2 c cornstarch, 1/2 c water and 1 egg. All shrimp tempura recipes say to keep the batter ice cold. That way, when the cold batter meets the hot oil, it will sear to a crust while keeping the shrimp inside moist.





I was so tickled for Wendell that his shrimp tempura came out so good!