Kakiage Don Tempura Donburi Assembly — Cook

Ingredients

For the tentsuyu (don-strength)
300 ml dashi, freshly made
100 ml mirin
100 ml soy sauce
For the kakiage tempura
500 g mixed vegetables and seafood, cut into fine strips or small pieces suitable for fritter assembly; e.g. burdock, carrot, spring onion, small shrimp
120 g plain flour, sifted; plus extra for dusting the mix
1 egg, beaten briefly in ice-cold water
180 ml ice-cold water, used with the beaten egg to form batter
1 litre neutral frying oil, fresh; e.g. rice bran or sunflower
For the bowl
800 g short-grain Japanese rice, cooked and kept hot

Method

1
Combine dashi, mirin, and soy sauce in a small saucepan in a 3:1:1 ratio. Bring to a gentle simmer and reduce until the sauce coats a spoon lightly and the raw alcohol smell of the mirin has gone. The finished tentsuyu should flow freely when ladled — it must soak through tempura and season rice, not pool. Keep warm over the lowest heat until service.
2
Toss the prepared mixed ingredients in a light dusting of plain flour. Make the batter by combining the beaten egg and ice-cold water, then adding the sifted flour in one addition; stir minimally — lumps are acceptable, over-mixing is not. The batter should be thin and barely cohesive. Use immediately.
3
Heat the oil in a deep, wide pan to frying temperature (approximately 170–180 °C by a batter-drop test: a drop should sink slightly, then rise and sizzle within two seconds). Fold the floured mix into a portion of batter and lower in portions by the spoonful or spatula, pressing lightly into a rough disc. Fry in fresh oil without crowding. The kakiage is ready when it is golden, the sizzling sound drops in intensity, and the disc holds its shape and floats freely — the crust is set and the interior cooked through.
4
Place hot freshly cooked rice into warmed bowls, filling each to two-thirds. Set one kakiage disc on top of the rice immediately. This step decides the dish: at the moment of service, ladle the warm tentsuyu in a single motion from the back of the bowl forward, covering approximately 60 per cent of the kakiage surface — sauce-softened on one side, dry and crisp on the other. The rice below must be hot; cold rice absorbs the sauce at the wrong rate and the dish loses its character. Do not sauce in advance.