About

About

Welcome to my website. I am the author of ‘Vietnamese – Simple Vietnamese Food To Cook At Home’. I am a photographer and film maker. You can book into my supper club, Vietnamese cooking classes, buy my book, check out my photography and lots more here.

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Vietnamese food is about the balance of flavours, of sweet, salty and sour – there is no measuring device that can ever match your own taste buds.

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Trying To Cook More Japanese: Vegetable Tempura Recipe & Matsuri

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My favourite food to eat out is Japanese. I love sushi. I love Japanese bento boxes, dumplings, teriyaki dishes… I can easily eat Japanese food every day so I’ve made a promise to myself to cook more Japanese at home and experiment with the Japanese/ Vietnamese fusion. But firstly, try to conquer some of the favourites and basics.

It so happens that I have recently been working as a food stylist on a commercial shoot with a few Japanese recipes and therefore got to master the tempura batter. I love ordering tempura in restaurants and didn’t realise how easy it is to do at home.

Thanks to Wholegood for supplying the vegetables

Here is a basic recipe for vegetable tempura

Vegetable Tempura

For the batter:
2 or 3 litres oil for deep frying (rapeseed/sunflower/vegetable)
100g plain flour
1 tbls cornflour
chilled sparkling water
pinch of salt (could be flavoured with shiso/ or other dried herbs)
ice cubes

a selection of vegetables, sliced 5mm

i.e.tenderstem broccoli, courgette, aubergine, carrot, pak choi, elderflower etc

dipping sauce
soy sauce, a dash of mirin, chilli oil
daikon radish

Wash and chop the vegetables into bite size pieces. Dry with kitchen paper.

In a deep pan heat the oil to 190C.

In a wide bowl stir together the flour, cornflour and salt. Add the sparkling water and stir until smooth, you are looking for about the same consistancy as pancake batter.

Add 3-5 ice cubes to keep the mixture cold. (the cold batter mixture and the hot oil makes  it crispy)

Individually dip, and well coat a piece of vegetable and gently lower into the hot oil using long wooden chopsticks.

Repeat this process being sure not to overcrowd the pan, 5-6 at a time is probably the maximum.

When slightly golden remove from the oil and place on a tray lined with kitchen paper to drain off the excess oil.

To make the dipping sauce, peel and finely grate about 0.5cm of the daikon radish into a small bowl and mix a little miring and chilli oil with soy sauce.

TIP: Make a little batter at a time because it needs to be freshly made and cold or your tempura will be soggy.

Matsuri

I was recently invited to eat at one of my favourite Japanese restaurants, Matsuri in St James’s. They do sushi, all the favourites and Teppan-yaki,  where the chef cooks on an iron grill in front of you. We had this amazing beef – Galician Beef T-Bone Steak – From a Japanese breed of cattle, with such great marbling, like Waygu – it was amazingly delicious! As was the black cod, sushi & tempura! My favourite thing, which is their egg fried rice is a must have!

It is definitely somewhere I  love going as a treat with a loved one or a best friend. Highly recommended!

Matsuri means “festival”, it is a joint partnership between Central Japan Railway Company, the major Japanese high speed train operating company, and Kikkoman, the world’s most famous soy sauce company.

www.matsuri-restaurant.com

Matsuri, 15 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AL

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With thanks to FML Public Relations

www.fml-pr.co.uk