Tempura Rice Bowl (Tendon) Recipe with Homemade Sauce

If you love tempura, you're going to love this homemade tempura rice ball. Golden, crispy, battered ingredients, all served over steaming rice and drizzled with a rich, sweet, savoury sauce. Let's get straight to it. First, I'm going to show you how to make a sweet and glossy tendon sauce. Start by taking a small saucepan and add 3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, 3 tablespoons of sake, 4 tablespoons of mirin, 1 tablespoon of light brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon of dashi granules. Stir it well and bring it to a boil. We're going to let it bubble for about 3 minutes so that it becomes thick, glossy and coats the tempura rather than absorbing and making it soggy. My rice is currently cooking in the rice cooker and I've been chilling my tempura batter ingredients in advance. It's good to be organised for this recipe. Okay, this is looking good so take it off the heat and set it aside to cool while we prepare the tempura. Start by heating your oil to 180 degrees Celsius or 356 degrees Fahrenheit. While it heats up, you can prepare your tempura ingredients. Make sure they're all washed, dried and cut, ready to fry. For this tendon, I'm using shrimp, lotus root, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms and shiso leaves. Feel free to use any of your favourite seafood or vegetables. I don't recommend this batter for chicken though, I have a separate recipe for chicken tempura if you're interested. Once your oil is hot, we can make the batter. 450 millilitres of chilled still water into a bowl and add one egg. Whisk it until it becomes foamy, then scoop up the foam and discard. This helps remove some of the egg white and makes the tempura crispy rather than fluffy. Next, add 100 millilitres of chilled sparkling water and then add the flour one third at a time. This is a mixture of 150 grams of cake flour and 30 grams of cornstarch that I mixed together and stored in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Mix it by drawing crosses in the mixture with upside down chopsticks. This helps prevent overmixing which in return prevents gluten formation. This is key to making light and crispy tempura. If you want to learn more about tempura specifically, you can check out my tempura batter video. Once it looks like this, add a few ice cubes and use it straight away. Tempura batter should be used up as soon as possible. Coat your chosen ingredients with a thin layer of flour, dip them in the batter and then place them straight into the oil. I recommend cooking each ingredient in batches. The cooking time depends on the ingredients. Shrimp like this usually take about three minutes, but root vegetables like sweet potato or rancum take a little longer. And thin ingredients like shiso take less. Once the ingredients are crispy and lightly golden, move them to a wire rack so that excess oil can drain off. This is important because otherwise the oil will seep into your rice. I recommend using any leftover batter to make tempura flakes. Dip a whisk into the batter and sprinkle it over the oil. Break them up with chopsticks and fry until crispy, about two minutes. Since they're too small for the wire rack, transfer them to kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. Finally, it's time to dish up. Divide your rice into serving bowls and sprinkle the tempura flakes over the top. Drizzle with a bit of sauce before arranging the tempura over the top. Finally, add a generous coating of sauce. And that's it. Delicious homemade tendon that tastes like it came straight from a tempura restaurant. And great news! I've launched a free mobile app that makes following along with my recipes even easier. It's the perfect kitchen companion after watching my videos. You can access step-by-step instructions right on your phone while you cook. Download link is in the description below. Thank you for watching. If you want to access the written version of this recipe, it's on my blog. I've put the link on the screen. And if you're interested in more about tempura batter, check out my tempura batter guide on the screen too. I hope to see you in the next video. Bye!