“Stick to seafood because that is more expensive. Stay away from food that you can normally get elsewhere. And most importantly, DO NOT fill yourself up with rice! Just dig out the meat and vegetables from the sushi, and leave the rice on the plate.” Sound familiar? Heeding my mother’s advice, I decided to grab pieces of shrimp tempura. Mmm, it was love at first bite. Although it is difficult to pinpoint the date when tempura first appeared in Japan, it is believed that the dish was influenced by Spanish and Portuguese explorers. At around the sixteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese missionaries and traders introduced deep-frying as a method of food preparation in Japan. Over time, tempura gradually emerged as a staple of Japanese cuisine. There are many theories about the origins the word “tempura” (天ぷら). “Tempura” has been linked to the Latin word tempora (time or time period), the Portuguese word tempero (cookery), and têmporas (a food that Catholic priests ate when they did not eat meat). Today, tempura is widely recognized as a dish of lightly battered and deep-fried vegetables or seafood. For my interpretation of this dish, I decided to bake battered vegetables instead of deep-frying them. I also added coconut to the tempura to give the vegetables a hint of sweetness. For more information about the history of tempura, check out this quick read on the Kikkoman website. Q: What is your favorite Japanese dish?
