Draft of Caesars Palace International cookbook, Tempura

Pish and shellfish page 89 TEMPURA (Seafoods and vegetables covered in light batter and deep-fried) In the newest of the Caesar Palace restaurants, the Japanese-inspired Ah So Room, chefs at individual grills prepare most of the dinner but the tempura xcourse is cooked in the kitchen because of space limit-ations. However, the home cook may win acclaim from guests by using an electric skillet on the dining room table. For excellent tempura you need instant cooking and instant eating. And part of the charm of a tempura dinner is the exquisite display on a tray of the seafood, fish and vegetables to be coated, in a thin batter and deep-fried. cold Truly elegant tempura is never soggy,and greasy but has a from over-frying light, crisp texture. It must not be brown/but golden in color. Of all Japanese food, tempura and sukiyaki (see recipe, page -r-) are highest in favor with Americans. When I worked in Japan helping to set up the Japanese food pavillion for the New York World's Pair in 1964, I had the good for-tune to meet Isao Yabuki, who, as long as he is alive, is the fiwly man allowed to cook tempura for the Emoeror and his family. Mr. Yabuki owns tempura restaurants in Japan and has been cooking Jao-anese food for 40 years. From him I learned that Charlie Chaplin was so enamored of tempura when he first tasted it, that he returned to Japan just to feast on these succulent morsels, crisp and hot from the fragrant sesame oil fryfcr. Pish and shellfish page 90 According to the scholarly Mr. Yabuki, tempura "orginated among Christian missionaries who came to Jppan some 400 years ago, following the visit of St* Francis Xavier. Xt is guite possible that the name derives from the Portuguese 'tempuras* or the Italian 'tempora' ... Using the Japanese materials at hand, fish were cooked in the way the Jesuits found most palatable, coated in batter and fried in deep oil." To obtain a perfect deep fry, called by gourmets superior to the French fry, there are a few secretst 1. The batter must be ice cold and thin. Use it immediately. Too much flour results in doughy and greasy tempura. 2. The ideal temperature of the hot oil is 380?, though some Japanese chefs use 350?, If oil is too hot, the batter covering becomes tough. 3. Do you add too much food to the oil at one time for this tends to drop the temperature. Only one-half of the skillet area should be filled with frying food. 4. Use a small sieve or skimmer to catch bits of batter that drop from food. If they remain and burn, an off taste develops in the cooking oil. TEMPURA BATTER: For 4 servings 2 cups all purpose flour, sifted 1 whole egg, taken from refrig-erator 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 cups cold water Pish and shellfish page 91 1. Mix flour and baking powder well in bowl. Add whole egg to water in another mixing bowl and stir well. Do not use whip. Combine both mixture^ and stir/ once or twice. Don*t worry if batter has lumps* it is this lumpiness which achieves the fluffiness of the batter. Too much stirring causes a sticky batter. There is another Japanese method in which the mixture is left in the fefrigerator to become heavy and form more of a thick coating. But our expert Japanese chef? agree with me that better tenroura is made by using the batter Immediately and from the thinner coating. This results in a less oily coating which drains better. OIL FOR DEEP FRYING: Use vegetable oils ? peanut, soy bean, cottonseed, sesame. Many Japanese use pure sesame oil. Though wonderfully fragrant, we think it is too heavy an oil to use alone, especially for the American palate. An excellent balance is 1/3 ??Is? cUfi& oil to 2/3 peanut oil. Tempura oil may be reused 3 or 4 times if it is carefully skimmed and M S6 strained in a fine sieve after each wsiag. Keep in refrigerator. What fish and vegetables to tempura? You can use practically everything* Delicate white fish such as porgy, bass, flounder, red snapper fillets cut in 3-inch uLacaa are all excellent. Sliced scallops, dipped in salt water and dried; lobster tails (remove meat from lobster shell), cut in bite-size pieces are equally good. Large shrimp are a universal favorite. Remove shell from shrimp but leave tail attached. Slit shrimp and discard vein. Cut across underside to straighten shrimp. A teaspoon of baby Fish and shellfish page 92 shrimp held together in batter is delicious or a teaspoon of crabmeat flakes dipped in batter or individual whole crab legs are all unusual and marvelous tasting tempura. Among vegetables to tempura, tiny Japanese eggplants (unpeeled and halved) are a taste thrill. They may be found in Oriental markets ^bite-size) or failing that, use/the smallest and freshest American eggplant you can buy. Small squares of green pepper, slices of sweet or white potato, whole young stringbeans, snow peas, celery or carrot slices 1/4- inch thick, rounds of zucchini and whole mushrooms, washed and dried k carefully, are all delicious. A teaspoon of green peas or chopped par-sley dipped in batter are equally good. Avoid cucumber as it is too watery. Many cooks use dried mushrooms which must be soaked for 15 minutes and stems removed. Squeeze dry. Cut large ones into slices. Gingko nuts, threaded like beads on a tooth pick, dipped into batter, and fried, have an exotic taste. HOW TO FRY? Hold shrimp by the tail, dip in batter, drop into oil for 2 minutes and drain on paper toweling. Dip vegetables in batter one at a time and fry for 1 and 1/2 minutes, then turn with skimmer and fry on other side. Do not add too many foods to oil at one time. Because the oil is so hot, the foods puff up while the center is not saturated with oil and thus preserves a crisp edge. Calories are low in this internationally admired method of deep frying. DIPPING SAUCEx What makes Japanese cooking unique and appealing is the dipping sauce. Quickly cooked foods are dipped into small individual bowls by Pish and shellfish page 93 each diner. Because the food is not seasoned, the dipping sauce should provide both seasoning and sparkle to each bite. For 4 tempura servings, you will needt 6 ounces of Japanese mild soy sauce 2 cups water (Do not use the heavy strong Chinese soy sauce or the 2 tablespoons of sugar American-made variety.) 1 ounce of Mirin (sweet saki) found in oriental food shops and some supermarkets Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan, bring to boil and turn off flame. The dipping sauce is served hot in small bowls for each 2 guests. They dip the hot foods with chopsticks or tongs into the sauce and eat them. A viaiation is to add 1/3 of a cup of Japanese white horseradish (Daikon) to the dipping sauce just after boiling. It gives a wonderfully crisp, sharp, hot taste to the dipping mixture. As my friend, Zsao Yabuki, Japan's greatest authority on tem-pura, saysi "The happy diners sit around the frying-pan, barely pro-tected from the popping hot oil, gobbling the sizzling tidbits as they come, pale and crusty, from the cooking. This has an added advantage, also, for the good cook is the flattered cook; and what more flattering to a cook than those murmurs of 'Mm-m-mmm,? as the eager guests regale themselves? Besides the pan, also, there is no embarrassment at asking for more ? bits of vegetable, fish and relish come at one unsolicited and in unending stream, until the replete guest must lean back and sigh deeply from pure pleasure."