Difficulty: Medium
Serves 4
For those members on the family who weren’t on a health-kick this Easter, plus those who were looking to indulge a little, I whipped up this super crispy batch of panko tempura. I’ve done tempura before but this time I decided to add to the crunch by using both batter and panko bread crumbs which turned out to be a totally excellent and radical decision on my part. Team this up with my wasabi salt and dipping sauce and you’ve got a dish worth breaking your diet for.
Ingredients
- 1/3 packet Lamyong Calamari (you can use tofu or another mock meat if this isn’t available)
- Handful of snow peas, tails removed
- 1/2 red capsicum, cut into chunks
- 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into chunks
- 1 small red onion, cut into chunks
- 2/3 cup plain flour
- 1 cup corn flour
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup and 1 tablespoon of soda water
- 2 cups panko bread crumbs
- 1 litre sunflower oil
- 1 tablespoon wasabi powder (you can get this from your local Asian grocery)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- Crushed peanuts
Method
- Unroll each piece of mock fish and cut into thirds and set aside with your prepared vegetables.
- In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, salt and pepper. There is no need to sift as this adds texture to the batter.
- Add the soda water and mix gently with a fork. Be careful not to overmix, just until all the ingredients are combined.
- Pour the bread crumbs into a shallow bowl and set aside next to the batter.
- Gently dip each vegetable/mock fish piece into the batter and transfer into the bread crumbs. Ensure the pieces are coated nicely before adding to your hot oil.
- Cook until golden and transfer to paper towel to drain.
- Prepare the wasabi salt by combing the wasabi powder and salt. That step is really easy, I think you can do that.
- Make the dipping sauce by combining the sweet chilli sauce, rice wine vinegar and sprinkling with crushed peanuts. That step is also pretty easy.
- Serve this dish immediately.
Man, this looks so good. The one time I looked for panko breadcrumbs, it had honey in it unfortunately. I’ll have to search again because I wanna try this!
Are you in Australia? The brand I picked up were in Woolworths!
Be My Friend
That can be arranged 😉