Vegetable tempura

In keeping with my Japanese theme I decided to make vegetable tempura to go along with my sushi. I followed a food network  recipe for the batter and went rogue on the vegetables/ fruits I used to make tempura. I’ve always thought that tempura was similar to Indian pakoras without the heavy batter on the vegetables. Looking at the history I noted that tempura was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese living in Nagasaki in the 16th century. Per my Wikipedia research - ‘The name "tempura" originates from the Latin phrase quatuor anni tempora, which refers to the Ember days, during which no meat is consumed’ 

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup 

Cornstarch - 1 tbsp 

Seltzer water - 1.5 cups 

Salt - to taste 

Vegetables: any cut into desired thickness and length 

I used : onion, carrot, sweet potato , avocado, green beans , asparagus, broccoli , mango and pomegranate

Vegetable / canola Oil 1 cup - 2 cups for deep frying 

Sauce :

Soy sauce - 3 to 4 tbsp

Brown sugar - to taste 

Apricot jelly - to taste 

Water - to dilute to desired consistency 

Instructions 

1. Mix all the ingredients of the batter together in a large mixing bowl 
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Dip the vegetables or fruit in the batter to coat them thinly and then deep fry them until golden brown. 
   
   
   
3. Tempura is ready to serve. I made a quick sauce with soy sauce , water, brown sugar and apricot jelly mixed together to use as a dipping sauce which was quite tasty 
   
   

Tip: if you have left over tempura you can heat it up in the air fryer at 350 for about a minute to two to get tempura that tastes just like when you pulled it out of fry pan !