Sushi and tempura

This weekend, I had a very odd desire to try my hand at making sushi and tempura at home. Many years ago, I helped arrange a sushi party. We made a few decent maki, a few sad nigiri, and some very nice tempura crab as I recall.

We started off by stocking up on what we needed. For the sushi, we picked up some nori, seedless cucumber, crab sticks, salmon, and tuna. For the tempura, it was a Japanese sweet potato, a small head of broccoli, white onions, and a zucchini.

The sushi was not much of a success. After cooking the rice and mixing it with the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt mixture, I made california rolls, alaska rolls (avocado and salmon), and spicy tuna rolls. I would say that the most successful was the spicy tuna rolls. My rolling certainly wasn't successful. I sure remember it being easier.

The tempura was pretty successful. To ensure that they would be soft, I pre-cooked the sweet potato by boiling it. The boiling was a little overzealous and a few of them did fall apart, but we had far too much food anyway and didn't miss the extra bits. I sliced most of the vegetables regularly thickly -- about 1/4" -- so they would stay together in the frying. The white onion slices were thicker, probably about 1/2".

I used the tempura recipe from Washoku, which can either simply be self-rising flour, or a mixture of all-purpose flour, salt, and baking soda. The batter is the flour (mixture) and water in a 2:3 ratio. You pretty much want it thin enough so that it coats the vegetables smoothly, but also drips through it smoothly. I guess I would say the consistency is similar to crepe batter.

Once the veggies are ready to go, heat your vegetable oil to 370, batter, and drop the vegetables in. Cook on one side for one minute, then turn it over and cook another minute. If the onions are on the small side, turn over after 30 or 45 seconds.

Tempura crab is one of my favorites. We have a box of frozen prime soft shell crabs that we buy at the Buford Highway Farmers Market, so I dug one out, defrosted it, dipped it in the batter, and let it go. It puffs up with a somewhat violent POOF! immediately after entering the oil, so drop it in and then step back! The same two minute total time works well. The soft shell crab was so tasty that even J really enjoyed it, and he is not a crabby kind of guy!

The tempura was definitely a success. We will have to have it again!