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Recipe

Shrimp Tempura Roll

hit the sushi spot… who's coming next time?

The roll everybody orders, made at home for about a quarter of what it costs across a counter.

The crumbs on top are tenkasu — the loose bits of tempura batter that fry off on their own. At a restaurant they are what is left in the fryer at the end of the night. At home you make them on purpose by flicking batter into hot oil with your fingers, and they take ninety seconds.

Keep one tail on and stand it up at the end of the roll. It is a small thing and it is the difference between a roll that looks homemade and one that looks like it came out on a plate.

Makes
2 rolls
Hands-on
50 minutes
Rice
Make first, cool
Crumbs
Tenkasu, 90 seconds

The rice has to be made and cooled first, which is most of the time. The rest moves fast.

Shrimp tempura roll under crumbs with a SapporoThree sushi plates with a crumbed shrimp roll in frontThree rolls stepped back across the sushi table
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The sushi rice

  • 2 cups sushi rice, rinsed until the water runs clear
  • 2 cups water
  • 4 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt

The tempura shrimp

  • 12 large shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails on, backs scored
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup ice-cold sparkling water
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup cornflour, for dusting
  • Oil for frying

To build

  • 4 sheets nori
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • 1 cucumber, in batons (from my garden)
  • Eel sauce — 1/2 cup soy, 1/2 cup mirin, 1/4 cup sugar, reduced
  • Sesame seeds

How it goes

  1. 1 — Rice first, and season it warm

    Cooked, then tipped into a wide dish and the vinegar, sugar and salt mixture folded through with a cutting motion while it is still hot. Then cooled to body temperature, fanned if you are impatient. Never refrigerate it.

  2. 2 — Score the backs of the shrimp so they stay straight

    Three or four shallow cuts across the underside and a gentle press to straighten each one. Without this they curl into a ring in the oil and will not sit in a roll.

  3. 3 — Batter cold, lumpy, and mixed at the last second

    Yolk into ice-cold sparkling water, flour tipped in and stirred four or five times only. Lumps are correct. An overworked batter turns to bread.

    pro tip — Make the batter AFTER the oil is hot, not before. Every minute it sits, the gluten develops and the tempura gets heavier.

  4. 4 — Dust with cornflour, then dip, then fry at 350°F

    Shrimp dusted in cornflour so the batter has something to hold, dipped holding the tail, into the oil. Two minutes until pale gold and crisp.

  5. 5 — Make the tenkasu crumbs

    Flick the leftover batter into the oil off your fingertips in a drizzle. It sets into loose golden crumbs in ninety seconds. Scoop them out with a sieve and drain them.

  6. 6 — Reduce the eel sauce

    Soy, mirin and sugar simmered fifteen minutes until it coats a spoon. It thickens again as it cools, so pull it early.

  7. 7 — Roll it rice-out, with a sheet of plastic on the mat

    Nori on plastic on the mat, rice spread over it, flipped so the rice faces down, filling laid along the nori, rolled firmly and squared off with the mat.

  8. 8 — Shrimp on top, crumbs over, sauce last

    Cut into eight with a wet knife, more shrimp laid along the top, tenkasu scattered heavily over the whole thing, eel sauce drawn across in lines, sesame over. One tail propped up at the end.

Who's coming next time? Bring rice vinegar. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.