Young Juicy New Season Onion
Onions are the goat of vegetables right now. When the summer is about to start you always see the young onion start to come around at the market here. And that’s what I have been waiting for a year. So young that the onion’s acidity hasn’t been developed, yet. So it is sweet, tender and juicy. Great in a salad, but it is the time they can be the star of the show. We can enjoy the Onion as the protagonist of the table.
When it comes to the food, Japanese are often fundamentalists. Means enjoy eating food in the simplest way possible with minimal seasoning. Sashimi for fish is a perfect example, slice the fish perfectly and eat only with a tiny dip of soy sauce. When they cook the fish, they think the ultimate way is grill on charcoal only with sprinkle of salt.
Vegetables are the same. Personally my favorite way of eating tomato is chill the one I just picked from the garden then bite it with a touch of salt. If you love the vegetable, you want to enjoy the taste an individual vegetable on its own. You can find this kind of “Focused” eating approach a lot in Japan. Tempura is the perfect example. You fry the vegetables one by one with a light crispy batter to the perfection and eat just with salt or Dashi. It almost look absurd like religious ritual of worshiping vegetables. But I met a bunch of chefs from Texas lately and talked about their Brisket. They told me they love eating nothing but smoked meat simply seasoned with black pepper and salt, no BBQ sauce, but on its own. There are fundamentalists anywhere in the world.
Long story short, I love Onion Tempura at this time of the year. It is so special everybody should try.
In this Recipe
- Cut the onion as you like: the most classic way is circle cut about 1cm thickness, then skewer along the diameter center, so that it does not disintegrate. Another way is cut int the sam way but disintegrate, so that it will become onion ring tempura. Another way is cut into wages, then disintegrate, so that it will be like flower petal tempura. It may be interesting to try all those 3 ways to enjoy the difference.
- Make Tempura Batter: Sift the flour first. Mix egg well into cold water ( 2 x eggs per 1L of water ). Put the sifted flour little by little into the egg water till you get the desired thickness. not too thick, not too thin, but for Juicy onion tempura, you want to make it a touch thick because the water content is high compare to normal onion. The point of Tempura batter is not to mix too well to avoid the gluten get developed. The same as temperature. The Batter need to be cold.
- Heat the oil till it get 180C ( 350F). I mix Rice Bran Oil and Sesame Oil around 4 : 1 ratio.
- Coat the onion with the cake flour first, then carefully shake off excessive flour. Drop them in Tempura Batter, pick them carefully and insert into the oil one by one. While frying, turn the onions upside down so they will get cooked evenly. When the bubbles coming out of onions get smaller, it is done. Take them out and lay on the kitchen paper to let the oil get absorbed.
- Put the paper on a plate, pile up the tempura onions on top and serve with your favorite choice of salt. If you get bored with the plain salt, you can try with any seasoned salt, or mix salt with anything you like such as toasted sesame seeds, matcha powder, black pepper, spice mix or herb mix. Or in the end you can eat with Ketchup like eating Onion ring. It is going to be as good!
