So on my days off work I like to try my hand at something I’ve never made before. Today I decided to make tempura batter and try an Asian style dish. I’ve tried Tempura in restaurants before, when I’ve been assured its just been made from corn flour and its always been a lovely light batter.

Sadly I didn’t have corn flour and also didn’t realise this until I went to make the dish so I just used Doves Plain Flour and I think it turned out pretty well. I’ve seen recipes suggesting adding corn flour or potato flour to regular plain flour and as this GF mix contains potato flour I figured by just using a bit more flour it would work out fine.

Once you’ve made the batter you can pretty much make anything ‘tempura’. I decided on courgettes, prawns and squid but I think next time I will definitely try aubergine.

To make the batter you will need:

100g of gluten free plain flour

200 ml of ice cold water (for a lighter batter try soda water)

half tsp of salt

1 egg yolk

For the dip:

Glug of sweet chilli sauce

an inch of fresh ginger, finely grated

1 tbsp of GF soy sauce

Begin my filling a large pot full of sunflower oil and putting on a high heat.

The batter couldn’t be more simple, just add all the ingredients together and whisk until smooth. Make sure whatever you are battering is dry. I had used frozen prawns and squid which were in a bath of cold water whilst they defrosted, so I made sure these were bone dry by patting them with a piece of kitchen roll before submerging them.

You can chop your veg which ever way you desire but I think slicing the courgette width wise helped achieve an even cook.

I decided to serve this dish with a rice noodle and cucumber salad and some char-grilled pak choi. Whilst my oil was heating up I but the dry rice noodles in a bowl of boiling water and chopped my cucumber in to batons. I began char-grilling the pak choi on one side using my griddle pan, no need for a frying agent, I cooked the leaves dry.

Once the oil is ready place your desired food in to the batter. I battered the courgettes first as I knew these would take the longest. I cooked these for about two minutes, the squid for about a minute and a half and as the prawns were pre-cooked I cooked them for about one minute because I didn’t want them to be overcooked.

Once the tempura food was done I placed them on a piece of kitchen roll to get rid of any excess oil.

Now all that’s left is to mix all the ingredients for your dip together and ensemble your salad. I drained my noodles, and mixed them with the cucumber and some sesame oil and served the whole dish together.

I think next time I try the batter I will use soda water just to try and get a really nice light batter. This would be a great meal to serve for friends coming round, get a whole array of food and present it as a serve yourself style meal with lots of nice salads to go.

Dom x