Tempura Mushrooms
These tempura Mushrooms are light, extremely crispy, and delicious in a sweet or spicy dipping sauce. Tempura battered mushrooms are a perfect appetizer for mushroom lovers a perfect party food that never displeases.
After taking a cooking class in Thailand and Master Class on Japanese cooking- I learned all the techniques to fry the perfect tempura. I changed up the batter recipe to make it lectin-free and gluten-free but you’ll never be able to taste the difference. With these steps you can have restaurant quality tempura in the comfort of your own home.
I used fresh oyster mushrooms because it was what my local fungiculture had in stock but you can use any mushroom or vegetables with this tempura batter. This tempura batter recipe yields a good amount of batter, so you don't have to worry about running out before you tempura all the things!
These bite-size appetizers work excellent paired with a ponzu dipping sauce, lectin-free ranch dip, garlic tahini sauce, Raising Canes dipping sauce copycat or try my no-honey mustard dressing. Delicious!
Tips from LECTIN FREE WIFE
Making Tempura is simple, but there are a few details to pay attention to get light, non-greasy, and ideally crispy mushroom tempura.
Your batter must be cold. Use the ice bowl trick to keep it cool.
The oil must be warm but not too hot. 350°F is the perfect frying temperature. A digital thermometer is your best friend in making perfect tempura every time.
Make sure the batter isn’t too thick. You only want it to coat the mushroom.
Don’t over crowd your pan. Mushrooms should have plenty of room around the outside edges so they can be flipped easily without sticking to each other.
Use a wok or a deep frying pan for best results.
Tempura Mushrooms
In only 30 minutes, you can have crispy gluten-free tempura mushrooms on your plate. The preparation time is 15 minutes and 15 minutes for the cooking of tempura mushrooms.
INGREDIENTS
Here’s all the goodies you need to make Tempura Mushrooms.
· 1 1/2 cup cassava flour
· 1 tsp iodized sea salt
· 1/4 tsp baking soda
· 2 tsp garlic powder
· 1 large egg- cold
· 12-14 oz cold mineral water (355 ml)
· mushrooms- cleaned and dried
· vegetables- washed and dried (if using)
· avocado oil for frying
For the BATTER…
Here’s how to make the batter for the Tempura Mushrooms.
1. Using large and medium-sized nesting bowls, fill a large bowl with ice and place a medium bowl inside.
2. In the medium bowl- add 1 c cassava flour, salt, baking soda, garlic powder and whisk until combined.
3. In a separate medium-large bowl, whisk the egg.
4. Add the cold mineral water to the whisked egg and whisk until combined. (Expect it to fizz up).
5. Add the egg/mineral water to the dry ingredients bowl, whisk until combined but do not whisk. The batter should be thin. Runny enough to cover the back of a spoon while still dripping off. Add more mineral water to the light batter if necessary.
For the FRYING…
1. Using a baking sheet with a rack, line half of the frame with paper towels and put it next to the frying area to place finished tempura pieces. Place a small/medium bowl on the other side of the frying site to deposit tempura crumbs.
2. Fill the bottom of a cast-iron pan or frying pan with enough avocado oil to submerge the vegetables.
3. Heat the oil. Using a digital kitchen thermometer, monitor the oil temperature until it reaches 350° F (lower or raise heat to keep this temperature). Continually check the temperature of the oil throughout the frying process.
4. Place the remaining cassava flour in a shallow dish, lightly dip and cover each of the mushrooms, dredging in a light coat of flour (do not skip this step, this helps reduce any remaining moisture left on the mushroom before frying, making less splatter/popping and clean up) and laying on a clean plate. Be sure to dredge all mushrooms and place them on the clean plate before moving to the next step.
5. Working steadily in small batches, take the dredged mushroom and dip it into the prepared batter, coating each side with a thin layer of the cold batter, then carefully lay the battered mushroom into the hot oil. Continue this step until the pan has several mushrooms, but careful to not overcrowd the pan
6. With kitchen tweezers, gently move the frying mushrooms over to the other side of the frying pan where you have enough space to use a mesh sieve to collect the floating crumbs that have broken off; place these crumbs in the bowl next to the cooking area.
7. When the mushrooms become lightly golden in colour, use the kitchen tweezers to flip the mushrooms to the other side, continue to remove leftover crumbs that may have broken off into the oil.
8. Mushrooms are done when they are a light golden colour on both sides. Do not over fry. Remove mushrooms from frying oil with kitchen tweezers to the paper towel side of a prepared baking sheet to allow excess oil to catch on the paper towel. Before starting the next batch, move the fried mushrooms to the open side of the rack (If left on the paper towel, the bottoms will become soggy)
9. Use a sieve to collect any remaining crumbs from the oil and check the temperature of the oil before beginning the next batch of mushrooms. Serve with Ponzu dipping sauce.
Here’s the Recipe…
Gluten-Free Tempura Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 c cassava flour
- 1 tsp iodized sea salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 large egg- cold
- 12-14 oz cold mineral water (355 ml)
- mushrooms- cleaned and dried
- vegetables- cleaned and dried (if using)
- avocado oil for frying
Instructions
- Using a large and medium sized nesting bowls, fill a large bowl with ice and place a medium bowl inside
- In the medium bowl- add 1 c cassava flour, salt, baking soda, garlic powder and whisk until combined
- In a separate medium-large bowl whisk the egg
- Add the cold mineral water to the whisked egg and whisk until combined. (expect it to fizz up)
- Add the egg/mineral water to the dry ingredients bowl, whisk until combined but do not over whisk. Batter should be thin. Runny enough to cover the back of a spoon while still dripping off. Add more mineral water to tin batter if necessary
- Using a baking sheet with rack, line half of the rack with paper towels and put next to the frying area to place finished tempura pieces. Place a small/medium bowl on other side of frying area to deposit tempura crumbs
- Fill the bottom of a cast iron pan or frying pan with enough avocado oil to submerge the vegetables
- Heat the oil. Using a digital kitchen thermometer, monitor the oil temperature until it reaches 350° F (lower or raise heat to keep this temperature) Continually check the temperature of the oil throughout the frying process
- Place the remaining cassava flour in a shallow dish, lightly dip and cover each of the mushrooms, dredging in a light coat of flour (do not skip this step, this helps reduce any remaining moisture left on the mushroom before frying, making less splatter/popping and clean up) and laying on clean plate. Be sure to dredge all of the mushrooms and place on clean plate before moving to the next step.
- Working at a steady pace in small batches, take the dredged mushroom and dip into the prepared batter, coating each side with a thin layer of the cold batter, then carefully lay the battered mushroom into the hot oil. Continue this step until the pan has several mushrooms but careful to not over crowd the pan
- With kitchen tweezers gently move the frying mushrooms over to the other side of the frying pan where you have enough space to use a mesh sieve to collect the floating crumbs that have broken off, place these crumbs in the bowl next to the cooking area
- When the mushrooms become lightly golden in color use the kitchen tweezers to flip the mushrooms to other side, continue to remove left over crumbs that may have broken off into the oil
- Mushrooms are done when they are a light golden color on both sides. Do not over fry. Remove mushrooms from frying oil with kitchen tweezers to paper towel side of prepared baking sheet to allow excess oil to catch on paper towel. Before starting the next batch, move the fried mushrooms to the open side of the rack (If left on the paper towel the bottoms will become soggy)
- Use sieve to collect any remaining crumbs from the oil and check temperature of oil before beginning next batch of mushrooms. Serve with Ponzu dipping sauce.