SCENE 1
The Kitchen

GUESTS: Tempura Monster
             Cooks

    I think it's safe to say that we have done our fair share of frying on this program. After all, we have pan-fried, we have wok-fried, we have sautéed, deep fat-fried. Why, we dedicated two entire episodes to the attainment of golden-brown deliciousness. Alas, that was all child's play compared to ... [crashing noises, apparently from outside] Did you hear a ...?  Anyway, as I was saying, there exists in the pantheon of fried food a dish of such lethal cunning, such devilish design ... [another loud crash shakes the camera] ... such confounding delightfulness, such terrifying, nitpicking brilliance, that it could only come from Japan. [another loud crash] Ah, this must be construction or something. The method I speak of is mythic and magical, and it's haunted the dreams of many a chef. I speak, of course, of the infamous ... [opens the window, and looks out] Aah! Tempura!

TEMPURA MONSTER: [roars, Godzilla-like, and tries to knock over a building]

    It is the horrible monster, Tempura, who comes ashore every 100 years to feast on the flesh of cooks! [cut to a shot of cooks running and screaming]

TM: [catches and eats a cook]

    Oh, the humanity! Who will save us?
    [from back inside the kitchen] Okay, is tempura really a monster? No. It is simply the pinnacle of the frying arts. It seems like a monster because doing it right can be so darn daunting. Even most Japanese cooks don't dare attempt it at home. When they want tempura, they go to a tempura restaurant. And yet, you know, if we stand up and fight our irrational fears with sound science, simple, everyday ingredients, well-tuned techniques, and basic-issue hardware, tempura can magically morph from monstrous, to monstrously ...

[Good Eats theme]

SCENE 2
Japanese Restaurant

GUEST: Server

    In Japanese cuisine, there are several forms of deep-fried foods, or "agemono", one of which is "koromo-age", or batter-fried foods. Now the most typical batter-fried food is tempura, which is composed of lightly battered vegetables and fish which are quick-fried.
    Now before attempting this feat of edible legerdemain at home, you may wish to seek out a Japanese restaurant with a reputation for tempura. If the establishment is tempura-serious, the distance between hot oil and patron will be as short as possible, as tempura should be consumed as soon as it, you know, won't burn off the inside of your mouth

SERVER: [brings a plate of tempura]

    Ooh, here's some of my favorite, sweet potato.

AB: Arigato.
S: [nods and leaves]

    It's interesting to note that like so many technologies perfected by the Japanese—from transistor radios to trains, cell phones to peaches—tempura is a western import, okay? Now in 1494, ...

SCENE 3
Animation

... Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided all newly discovered lands, meaning most of the planet, between them for the purpose of bringing Catholicism and, of course, trade, to the heathen world, a mission for which they had the blessing of the Pope.
    Now Japan fell into Portugal's territory. And in 1549, a Jesuit by the name of Francis Xavier landed at Kagoshima and began his good work. Now by converting the nobility first, the Portuguese met with considerable success initially, even teaching the Japanese a few culinary tricks to help them navigate Catholic fasting days such as the quattuor tempora, I think, which took place every quarter of the year. Now during this time, the clergy consumed mostly fish, which they typically batter-fried.
    Now Christianity was eventually outlawed in Japan in 1587.

SCENE 4
Japanese Restaurant

    But the method, whose name morphed from tempora to tempura, stuck. And over time, the Japanese refined it into a high art, something that I intend to do right now. So we'll just take a couple of pieces back to the lab for analysis.

AB: [to no one in particular, as he leaves] Domo arigato.

SCENE 5
The Kitchen

    Further examination of the sample reveals a thoroughly cooked base food encapsulated in a crystalline crust which exhibits proper adhesion and a snappy, well, snap. What's more, there is no outward sign of greasiness whatsoever. It's no wonder that tempura scares the toques off so many cooks, as amazing forces are clearly at work. But monstrous? I think not.
 

    [at the refrigerator] Traditionally, tempura is a method for cooking vegetation and mild white seafood. My favorites: slender green beans—fresh as possible, of course—flat-leaf parsley, the wider the leaves, the better, shrimp—medium, head on, fresh, never frozen. And, we'll say, half a pound of tilapia fillet. A very, very mild fish, good for tacos and tempura. That's about it. But wait, there's more.

SCENE 6
Root Cellar

    Root and storage vegetables have always occupied a place of honor at the tempura table. Renkon, or lotus root, kabocha squash, bamboo shoots, all highly prized. But as I said, my favorite is the sweet potato, originally grown in the region around Kagoshima, where, of course, the Jesuits first landed.
    Now the Japanese developed their own version of this import, but they're a little tough to find. So you can use anything that you would get at the mega mart. The jewel variety, the beauregard variety, are fine. But I prefer the garnets, because they are the perfect size and shape for this application. [ascends the stairs]

SCENE 7
The Kitchen

GUEST: Thing

    All right, listen up. Tempura cooks fast, so tempura cooks hot. And so our target foods require a high surface-to-mass ratio.

    As for the sweet potato, it is hard, and that means we'll need even more surface area to cook it quickly. So thin slices are in order, say an eighth of an inch max. And although I certainly could do that with a knife, you know, if I wanted, it would be hard, and it would take a long time. So we break out the mandoline. [Thing tosses AB a mandolin (lute)]

AB: Thing, do you never grow weary of that gag. Because I, for one, think it was funny about 1.2 times.

Shojinage is tempura that consists exclusively of vegetables.

SCENE 8
The Kitchen

    Boy howdy, I wish I had a nickel for every card, letter, fax, text, or e-mail I've received asking why I don't utilize one of the shiny, new countertop deep-fryers that has come on the market in recent years. Well, I'll tell you. Even if this device could reach the temperature it claims, which I have yet to witness, and even if it wasn't a tremendous pain to use, which it is, and even if it was as quick and easy to clean as it says, which it isn't, it would still be, at best, a unitasker, and you know what I think of ... Wait. You know, that's unfair. I can think of one other thing this would be good for. [camera pans to three fryers, each used as a flower pot] Now, let's consider some more traditional vessels, shall we?

    Now we could use this nice modern tempura pot. It's made out of thin iron, so it responds to temperature changes quickly. It's coated, so it's non-reactive. No rusting. It's nice. A really, really fine multitasker. But it's expensive and kind of hard to find, unlike the vessel that we so often turn to when we deep-fry. I speak, of course, of the cast-iron Dutch oven. It is cheap, readily available, and just heavy enough to make heat control more manageable.
    Speaking of heat management, I always fry with a fry thermometer. And I prefer an analog model over digital, because that little rising red column of liquid gives me a better indication of how quickly thermal changes are taking place in this pot, and that's important.

    When facing the dread tempura monster, one might be tempted to get all fancy with the fry oil. After all, modern cooks have access to dozens of different oils, including those harvested from nuts, seeds, fruits, various vegetation. Some are cold-pressed. Others are unrefined. All have specific flavor profiles and optimal temperature ranges. Although sesame oil, for instance, has often been implicated in classic tempura scenarios, plain, good old vegetable oil is my tempura fuel of choice: because it is completely devoid of flavor, it is cheap, biodegradable, and if I'm careful, I can filter it for use another day. One and a half quarts should do the job.

    Make sure the rest of your hardware is in place. You'll need two bowls. Ice will go in here. The batter will go in here. More on that later. You'll need some tongs to deliver the food from the batter over to the oil. When the food is ready, we will retrieve with a spider or some other straining device to the draining rig. My draining rig, paper towels on top of a cooling rack, on top of a sheet pan. I also have standing by the final resting place, some nice simple platters. And look, plain white paper. This is very traditional for tempura. But make sure you don't fold it straight on the angle. You want it to be just barely off-angle. But don't get it backwards, because I'm pretty sure that means "funeral" in Japanese. In this cuisine, everything means something.
    Behold, the Japanese characters for tempura, which translates roughly into "flour like gauze" or "batter-like revealing dress," depending on how you read it.
    Now when the Portuguese first unleashed tempura upon Nippon, the batter was simply water, wheat flour, and egg. Now I have tried every possible combination thereof, and cannot for the life of me come up with anything even remotely like the sample that we examined earlier. As you can see, clunky, greasy, nasty, like really bad fish and chips.
    The problem as I see it is, of course, gluten. As any good Good Eats fan knows, anytime we mix wheat flour and water together, two molecules, glutenin and gliadin, unwind and intertwine, forming a resilient, yet elastic matrix. Gluten is springy. Gluten is tough. And what's worse, gluten holds on to both water and fat. This translates to gummy, greasy tempura. Not exactly "gauzelike revealing dress" or whatever it was.

    [at the countertop, working with Styrofoam models] The process of bleaching isn't just about making the flour white, though that certainly is a factor. It's really about making the starch granules themselves more fat-friendly, a positive characteristic in cake baking. Now bleaching chemically cracks open the starch's structure. There, it is now more fat-soluble. By using an unbleached cake flour, you can avoid this over-friendliness. Now if you can't find unbleached, go ahead with regular cake flour, but know that it will make a subtle difference, and tempura success is all about subtle differences.

Tempura is sometimes served with soup and pickles in Japan.

SCENE 9
The Kitchen

    [at the refrigerator] Keeping the tempura batter cold will slow the absorption of liquid into the flour, and that's why we're going to set the batter bowl down into an ice bath.
    As for the batter itself, if we switch out the water that's called for in most recipes with either seltzer water or club soda, we'll introduce a lot of tiny bubbles into the batter, which will lighten it. CO₂ also makes the water slightly acidic, and that is going to help to limit gluten formation. You know what else would limit gluten formation? We could replace some of the water with another liquid altogether, one that doesn't contain much water or oil. Hmm, what would that be?
    [at the cupboard] Alcohol is a liquid, but it's not water. It doesn't tend to soak into flour. It does not contribute to the construction of gluten. And since it evaporates at a relatively low 78 degrees Celsius, any batter containing it should, technically speaking, dry faster than one that is water-based. Half a cup of 80-proof vodka—that's 40% alcohol by volume—can stand in for half a cup of water. 100-proof vodka, even better.
    [at the countertop] So in the end, we replace everything but the egg. We do require the services of one large egg, because it will provide fat for flavor, color, and protein for binding. Just one will do.
    [at the stovetop] All right, our fry oil is at 365, quickly closing in on 375. Time to batter up.

    That's right. You see, in tempura, the fresher the batter, the better. Because as the few wheat glutens that are there sit in the water, they are going to toughen. So I'm going to actually use up one small batch, and then make another batch halfway through. Believe me, at some tempura joints, they make a separate batch of batter for every single order. I have seen it.
    So we take our first batch of batter over to the bowl. And keep in mind, ice is here, because cold batter hydrates more slowly than a warm batter. So the dry team goes in, and the wet team goes on top, and then we mix.
    Oh, notice, I am using a whisk rather than the traditional tempura mixing chopsticks, or hanabashi, which look a lot like drumsticks, if you ask me. Mixing, about ten strokes, and then just walk away. Walk away. Yeah, I know, lumps. But they will work themselves out. Don't worry. All right, let's fry.
    Always start with the hardest vegetable I have. In this case, that would be the sweet potato, and six pieces will do. More than that, and we'll crowd the pan. Make sure you've got thorough coating, but also drain thoroughly. We don't want any big glops of batter. There we go. And make sure you put them in one at a time so they don't touch.
    Heat management here is key, so check your thermometer often. And just ride the heat control to maintain the temperature between 375 and 400, tops.
    Now in two to three minutes, you'll see the color change on the batter to light brown, and the sizzling will start to diminish a little. That's when you know it's time to evacuate to the draining rig.
    Now next, we'll go with the second-hardest vegetable, being the beans. Again, about six pieces at a time, thorough coating and thorough draining. Don't skip that part. There you go. And again, try to keep them separated as they go in so they won't stick. Cook time, again, one to two minutes. Manage that heat properly, 375. When you've got light brown, out that goes. And just put that next to the sweet potatoes over on the rack. There, that looks good.
    Last, but not least, we'll go with the parsley. It has the shortest cooking time. Don't let go of it. Just kind of swirl it around in the batter. It's going to look very kind of club-like, but don't worry. If you put them in one piece at a time, kind of laying them out, they will spread open or bloom. I generally let these cook only 30 to 45 seconds, because I still want to have that bright green flavor. There, that's perfect. And evacuate.
    Hard-core tempurists will tell you that you should cook each item and then serve it individually. Me, I kind of like to have, you know, a little medley on the plate. So I go with all three of the vegetables in small batches, and then come back and do the seafood.
    Ah, as the lucky diners receive the golden goodness you hath wrought, they should quickly dip each piece into the soy-ginger sauce. [tries, but there is no soy-ginger sauce] Oh, bother.

According to legend, the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu liked
tempura so much he ate it to death in 1616.

SCENE 10
The Kitchen

    [AB is eating] Mmm mmm. Now with the vegetation consumed, you should slip off and cook the seafood, while your guests stay behind and talk about what a genius you are behind your back.
    So, time to mix up our second half of the batter, again, over ice to keep it nice and cold. No more than about ten whisks with the whisk. And then the fish comes in. We're going to start with the tilapia. Five pieces, tops. Again, after that we'd be crowding the pan, which we don't want to do. The colder the fish is, by the way, the better the batter will stick. So you might want to keep it refrigerated if a lot of time is going to pass.
    Into the oil. Again, 375 minimum, or things will get greasy. Watch that heat management. After about two minutes, you should have something that looks like this. Excellent.
    Now the shrimp's a little more fragile, so take your time with it. Again, make sure you've got the tail fin still in place, because that's how you're going to hold it. See? Nice drain and then headfirst into the oil. Again, two minutes, tops, and you should have something that looks a lot like this.
    Typically, the shrimp has to drain just a little longer than the fish in order to not be greasy. There.

TM: [appears outside the window, this time, very calm]

    Oh, there, see? A once-dreaded, ten-story-tall engine of doom is reduced to a perfectly docile culinary critter.

AB: Now go get the mail, wash the car, and maybe we'll play fetch. Good boy.
TM: [leaves]

    Ha ha ha ha. See you next time on Good Eats.

Transcribed by Michael Roberts
Proofread by Michael Menninger

Last Edited on 05/01/2011