Traditional Japanese Vegan Cuisine, Part 2 of 2 – Vegetable Tempura and Zaru Udon

Today, we are pleased to have Ms. Chikako back on our show with another two traditional Japanese dishes, Vegetable Tempura and Zaru Udon. "Tempura is said to be one of the four popular dishes in the Edo (period), and it is a traditional dish that even people living alone can readily enjoy. OK, I’d like first to introduce the ingredients. They are: Carrot, burdock root, sweet potato, lotus root, chestnut pumpkin, eggplant, red and yellow pepper, shiitake mushroom, okra, and broccoli. Let’s start cutting them. First, the carrot, slice it thinly.” “Let’s make the batter for the tempura. Today, I’ll use commercially available (vegan) tempura flour. I’ll add 1.5 times as much soda water as the tempura flour. Please use chilled soda water from the refrigerator.” “So, the batter is ready. Let's sprinkle tempura flour on the ingredients.” “OK, let’s fry the tempura. First, turn up the heat; the temperature suitable for tempura is 170ºC to 180ºC. Let's put in a drop of batter to see if the temperature of the oil has risen. If the batter immediately floats to the surface, the temperature is just right. Now that it's floated up to the surface let's fry the tempura.” “All the ingredients are fried, so let's make a tempura dipping sauce. The ingredients for the tempura dipping sauce are vegan soup stock, soy sauce, beet sugar, and grated radish. The ratio of the soup stock to soy sauce is 3 to 1. And for the sugar beet, please adjust the amount according to your preference. And you mix them.” “Let's cook the Zaru Udon. Let me introduce the ingredients. They are frozen udon noodles, chopped laver, vegan soup stock, soy sauce, beet sugar, and grated yam. Here I have thin-sliced okra and nameko mushrooms, which have been parboiled. I’ll turn on the heat. I’ll use frozen udon noodles without defrosting them; please boil them for one minute. “Now that the udon is ready, let's make the dipping sauce. To make the sauce, the ratio of vegan soup stock to soy sauce should be six to two, plus a little beet sugar.”