June Sourdough Surprises - Tempura

This month's Sourdough Surprises was totally different and totally cool. Over the last couple of years, we have been experimenting with all of the different things that we can bake with our starters. Well this month was a little different. We didn't do any baking.

This month was all about frying.

The primary inspiration this month was onion rings, but the options were truly limitless.

It actually took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. And then it hit me. Tempura. I tried tempura once before and we all absolutely loved it. So... given that the idea this month was to batter and fry things, why not try it again?

The batter comes together super easily, though I was a bit surprised about the ingredients.

The dry ingredients include flour, cornstarch and two leavening agents - baking powder and baking soda. I wouldn't expect any leavening agents in tempura, much less two, but I went with it.

Then just combine a bit of sourdough starter with some water...

...mix everything together...

...and you're ready to start dipping!

I chose to go simple this time and just do broccoli.

And it fried up absolutely beautifully.

And even better - it tasted amazing.  Seriously - this is totally the way to eat broccoli. Battered and fried to golden perfection, it was so tasty.

Yeah, I know the frying undoubtedly cancels out most of the healthiness of the broccoli, but this was so delicious. It was more like snack food than like a veggie.

I seriously can't wait to do this again. And considering that I generally am not a fan of deep frying, that should tell you just how good this was.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sourdough Tempura Batter
(from Maggies Mudpies - Sourdough blog)

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon seasoning salt or Old Bay (I used 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of garlic powder)
3/4 cups water
1/4 cup sourdough starter

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and baking soda.
In a 2-cup measuring cup, combine starter and water, whisking together to break up starter.
Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture, stirring until there are no lumps. The mixture will be pretty thin - thinner than pancake batter.
Dip veggie or meat of your choice in the tempura batter, then deep fry for 2-3 minutes until golden brown. Remove from heat and drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

*note - the recipe I was following did not list specifics for the oil for frying. I used canola oil, which I heated to 350 degrees and it worked beautifully.

Enjoy!