Innie or Outie

It’s Grammy night. Hubby and I felt like being able to relax at the dinner table and munch away while watching the show. Sooo, here’s another tabletop dinner idea:

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Tabletop Veggie Tenpura Dinner

You can use almost any type of vegetable in which ever proportions meet your needs.

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For our platter we used:
1/2 medium onion (thinly sliced)
1/2 medium carrot (julienned)
1/2 bunch nira (according to hubby this is a veggie similar to chives that is a cross between garlic and onion)
1 small bell pepper (julienned)
Frozen chicken wings (semi-defrosted)
Frozen chicken nuggets (semi-defrosted)
3 tablespoons freshly snipped basil

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For the batter we used:
1 egg
250 milliliters iced water
1 1/3 cups tenpura flour

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk egg and water together. Fold in flour, but only to the point of moistness. (The batter looks like lumpy and slightly runny cake batter, but you can adjust the amount of flour to reach your desire consistency.)

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Other equipment needed:
Deep fryer

Heat oil in deep fryer as suggested by manufacturer.
Meanwhile, thoroughly toss one-third of veggies in batter.
When oil is ready, alternate cooking between chosen meat and battered veggies. Beginning with the items that require longest cooking period. (I use a laddle to spoon the veggies into the deep fryer).

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For this dinner menu we also chose to include rice (sprinkled lightly with soy sauce) and nori (dried seaweed) as extra munchies to the main platter.

You can use home fries or any other favorite food item that goes well with deep fried foods. You could even include miso soup as a beverage. This dinner course is very flexible.