This light, crisp batter lends irresistible crunch to thinly sliced root vegetables, fish and even leaves
These feather-light vegetable or seafood fritters are characteristic of Japanese cuisine: as Nancy Singleton Hachisu writes in Japan: The Cookbook, even the country’s fried foods somehow “manage to be gloriously free of heaviness”.
The idea of deep-frying is thought to have been brought to Japan by Portuguese traders, hence the name, which apparently comes from the word tempuras, or ember days, when they would abstain from meat. According to the late Tokyo tempura restaurateur Isao Yabuki, two of the Japanese characters chosen to represent it are apparently oddly appropriate: “A flour-like gauze, or a batter so delicate that it resembles a revealing dress.”
Continue reading...from Lifestyle | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2LtXumT