made my first (to my recollection) attempt at tempura frying earlier this evening. I had been gifted a bunch of zucchini and I wanted to fry it up, so I bought a single egg at the farmer's market this morning for 4 pesos (20 cents US). late this afternoon I whipped the egg with chopsticks, added a cup of water and a cup of flour (actually, my biscuit mix, which is mostly flour). I used the smallest diameter enameled steel cooking vessel I had, 1 liter, so as to use the minimum amount of lard, but it was so small it barely fit on the very edges of my butane stove, so I used 4 neodymium magnets to hold it secure. bad idea. I didn't know that these magnets lose their strength in high heat. eventually it slipped, and it was a miracle that the grease didn't spill and ignite and burn the whole palapa down. I had only successfully fried a few of the 30 pieces by then.
so I tried using the pot of grease on top of the griddle. no go. not enough heat was passing through the griddle to the lard in the pot, so the squash was mostly raw. eventually I transferred the grease to my next larger pot, which was still slipping, so I used the two pieces of steel stock I had cut for that purpose to stabilize it. eventually I cooked and ate it all. but it was substandard.
I just used the remaining tempura batter, with more added flour and some machaca, to make a large quickbread for tonight's dinner. I haven't tried it yet. thinking of going to get another Ballena, Pacifico's quart bottle, although that will pretty much guarantee I won't get any more coding done tonight.
last updated 2016-12-17 21:38:16. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com
