Ten Don is the short form for Tempura Donburi , and it is usually written as Tendon in restaurant menus. This dish consists of Japanese rice with crispy tempura. It is fairly hard to make tempura as crispy as those sold in the restaurants. Any edible food can be used for tempura, but vegetables such as brinjal or ladyfingers is normally used while the protein choice is usually seafood and the most popular is prawn.
Ingredients (4 servings):
- 2 whole Eggs, boiled for 6 minutes, peeled, keep in an ice bath until ready to serve
- 8 prawns
- 1/2 small purple sweet potato
- 4 shishito peppers
- 4 green beans
- 4 shiitake mushrooms
- 4 shiso leaves
- 3 cups of Japanese short-grain rice
- Dashi stock powder
- 50 g plain flour
- 75 ml cold icy water
- 1 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp shirodashi
- 2 tbsp water
Directions:
- Wash the Japanese short-grain rice with water until the water becomes clear.
- Leave the rice to soak for around 15 minutes and drain the water off.
- Prepare a stock using 260 ml of water and a sachet of dashi stock powder.
- Add the prepared stock to the rice and cook.
- Prepare the soft boiled eggs by boiling the eggs for 6 minutes and place them in ice for 15 minutes. Peel the egg and set aside to serve later.
- Wash the prawns using tap water and remove the heads of prawns, then remove its legs and shells from the tail end. Rinse the prawns in thin saltwater to remove any unwanted odour then remove excess moisture.
- Wash the sweet potato and slice them into thin pieces for it to get cooked easily.
- Wash the shiitake mushrooms, remove their stems and slice them into pieces.
- Wash the shiso leaves, green beans and shishito peppers.
- Prepare the batter by adding water and mayonnaise in the bowl.
- Then add in the flour and stir it slightly.
- Dip every ingredient mentioned previously into the batter and coat them.
- Heat the oil to 180-degree celsius and put the battered ingredients into the pan.
- Take out the cooked ingredients and drain off the oil.
- Prepare the sauce by placing the soy sauce, mirin, sugar, shirodashi and water into a saucer.
- After the sauce boil, leave them to simmer for 1 or 2 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and leave it aside when it is thickened and concentrated.
- Serve the rice and place the fried tempura over the rice.
- Pour the sauce over the rice bowl or use it to dip the tempura when eating.