Weissbier tempura

rexehuk

rexehuk

rexehuk

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Haven't done a bit of tempura in a long time! As I had a bottle of german weissbeir in the fridge I was curious to see what such a flavoursome beer could do.

The results gentleman? A heart stopping plate of crispy goodness.

I added the cous cous to make myself feel better about such a artery blocking feast, I didn't get to eat much of it.

Recipe:

  • 00 grade flour
  • Weissbeer (Add enough to make a thick but runny batter)
  • Coat chicken in salt/pepper
  • Flour the chicken in seasoned flour (Pepper / Paprika in mine)
  • Shake off flour
  • Submerge in batter, then let it drip the excess off
  • Put in oil :)

Coated mine in jack daniels sweet bbq sauce.

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Flare said:
:eek: Amazing! Batter recipe please.
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It's in the original post fool! :D

Batter for beer tempura is really easy, shove some flour in a bowl, add beer until you have a decent consistency!

I cooked each one for maybe 5 minutes on medium-high heat. The final batch I left in a little longer by accident (you can maybe see some darker ones).

Next time I'll add a bit more salt, but overall they were very tasty! That amount on the plate was 2 x Chicken breast, I had to throw away two chicken cut-offs due to the amount I had made.

The oil was a mix of 90% crisp and dry + 10% stir fry oil to give it a bit of flavour.

If you want a seriously mental tempura (crispy strands everywhere) then make your batter thicker. Just make sure your batter is thicker than something like pancake batter, if it's that watery then it won't work too well.
 
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Saw this last night and was going to post. Looks sweet.

I don't get how people can bugger up batter?! You see it on all these shows and it's the simplest thing to make. Will try it with some other carbonated things though, looks tasty!
 
rexehuk said:
Haven't done a bit of tempura in a long time!
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And you still haven't.

Tempura doesn't have beer in the batter and it's certainly not made from OO flour. You've made a heavy beer batter, not a light Tempura batter.

Decent effort all the same, mind you.
 
glitch said:
And you still haven't.

Tempura doesn't have beer in the batter and it's certainly not made from OO flour. You've made a heavy beer batter, not a light Tempura batter.

Decent effort all the same, mind you.
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Tempura is simply flour + liquid, obviously in this case it was beer instead of water (beer tempura > look it up). I used 00 flour over the normal to get a much finer batter, which worked well. The fizz in the beer really helps make the batter extremely light.

The reason why mine was smooth rather than very prickly as some tempura is, was due to my mixing, I went the whole way and whisked it until smooth, rather than leaving it semi mixed to achieve loads of crispy batter.

Try it yourself!
 
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rexehuk said:
Tempura is simply flour + liquid, obviously in this case it was beer instead of water (beer tempura > look it up). I used 00 flour over the normal to get a much finer batter, which worked well. The fizz in the beer really helps make the batter extremely light.
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Well, almost any batter is just the addition of liquid to flour, I'll grant you that, but I'm still not going along with this whole tempura thing.

rexehuk said:
The reason why mine was smooth rather than very prickly as some tempura is, was due to my mixing, I went the whole way and whisked it until smooth, rather than leaving it semi mixed to achieve loads of crispy batter.
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But is the point of tempura not the unique structure of the batter itself, which is why it is made in the unusual way that it is? I'd have thought that the last thing you want to do with a tempura batter is wake the gluten up by over-mixing it.

Look, let's agree to disagree here. I'm not belittling your efforts, merely being overly critical of your choice of name for your batter.

rexehuk said:
Try it yourself!
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I think I may well do so. Do you think it would be equally at home with strips of a meaty white fish as it seems to be with chicken?

QuickLink said:
You can get tempura flour, so yea fair enough if you want to be really anal about it. But batter is still batter in essence.
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I wouldn't say there was anything anal about it; tempura is a very specific type of batter with very specific ingredients, prepared in a manner unlike that of other batters.

But yes, batter is still batter in essence. Flour and liquid, as our intrepid OP has also pointed out.
 
I think you're all just jealous of my fatty chicken treats! :D

glitch said:
I think I may well do so. Do you think it would be equally at home with strips of a meaty white fish as it seems to be with chicken?
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Can't speak for that as I don't eat fish! But I imagine it would be tasty depending on the type of fish used? If you used prawns it would work well.. that's what the traditional meat is used with tempura.

Tempura batter is just a different gluten level... bitch what you may, batter is batter, just the gluten levels and intensity of mixing determine the end product.

I've made tempura in the past very much like the eastern methods (lots of crispy strands) but was not in the mood for something so fattening on the evening I done it.

Try it, and share any other beers that you enjoy to use to make a tasty batter. I may well try a Belgian duvel or something similar next time.
 
Glitch is correct. This isn't tempura but it looks nice.

Claiming that all batter is batter is a bit insidious - you could say that all beer is beer or all steak is steak if you overlook the fact that with the same ingredients you can achieve very different results depending on the preparation method... That's not even considering the fact that you've not used "tempura" ingredients.
 
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