Do you like crispy tempura? Tempura is deep fried vegetable or seafood, which is commonly eaten in Japan. If you know some tips, it's not so hard to make delicious tempura at home. All ingredients can be found easily at your local grocery stores. Actually, you can make tempura with almost anything.

Basic Steps for Cooking Tempura:

1. Prepare the ingredients.
2. Make tempura batter.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a deep pan to 340-350F degree.
4. Lightly dip ingredients in the batter and immediately fry them until crisp. It takes longer to fry vegetables than to fry seafood.
5. Drain tempura on a rack.
6. Serve right away with tentsuyu (tempura dipping sauce). Tempura is best served hot.

How to Make Tempura Batter

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup ice water
• 1 cup all purpose flour

Preparation:

Beat an egg in a bowl. Add ice water in the bowl. Be sure to use very cold water. Add sifted flour in the bowl and mix lightly. Be careful not to overmix the batter.
Makes 4 servings

Steps to Make Tempura Shrimp

1. Remove heads and shells from shrimps without removing tails.
2. Devein the shrimps. Make two or three incisions in the stomach sides of the shrimps.
3. Lightly press the back of shrimps by fingers.  Using a knife, remove the dirt from the tails of shrimps. 
4. Dry shrimps on paper towels. 
5. Mix eggs and ice water in a bowl. Add flour in the egg mixture.  Lightly mix the batter.
6. Flour shrimps before frying. 
7. Heat vegetable oil to 340F degree in a deep pan. *To check the temperature of the oil, drop a little tempura batter into the oil. If the batter comes up right away instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan, it's about 360 F degree. If the batter goes halfway to the bottom and comes up, it's about 340F degree. 
8. Pick the tail of shrimp and dip shrimp in the tempura batter.
9. Immediately fry the shrimp until crisp. 
10. Serve tempura shrimp right away with tempura dipping sauce or salt. Tempura is best served hot.