Kakiage Donburi ... My Version

It's been a very long time since I did deep fry dish in my kitchen. So, I forgot a lesson or two on the art of deep-frying while making this kakiage donburi and ended up with quite a hefty casualty. Normally Kakiage is done with shrimps/prawns,squids and scallops (at least that's what MOS burger version has). Some restaurants will also use perilla leaves (I love those leaves but damn they're expensive). To me, I conclude that Kakiage is Japanese version of bala bala, OK slightly different, but the idea is the same. Basically you put together a of sliced veggies plus some seafood of your liking, mix it into a batter and deep fry it. That's why initially I'm thinking of making bala bala instead of kakiage. But there's a catch. In bala bala, the art is to make the batter not too watery and to stay fluffy after hours. We don't have to do that for Kakiage because guess what, you just need to follow tempura mix recipe on the back of the package, which is exactly what I did.

yield: 1-2 person (depends how big you want to make your kakiage)

What you need:

100 gr silver fish

50 gr carrot, julienned

1/2 no onion, thinly sliced

1 pack enoki

100 gr tempura flour

160 gr water

Sauce:

7 tbsp soy sauce

4 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp Worchestire sauce

1 tbsp honey

5 tbsp water

How to:

1. On a bowl, make the tempura batter, and add on the rest of ingredients, mix well

2. On a wok, heat up oil to 170-180C (How do you know? Just do a random test, splash bits of tempura batter, if it come up fast, then it's ready for frying)

3. Deep fry the portion

4. Sauce: on sauce pan, mix all the ingredients and heat them up.
5. Assemble: On your bowl, place rice, pour in bit of sauce (not too much, but to your liking). Place the kakiage on the top, and drizzle it with the sauce again.


Tips:
1. If you're too lazy to heat up the sauce, don't add water to it. Just mix the rest of ingredients on a bowl and use it.
2. My crash course refreshment on the art of deep frying:
    - Don't be stingy with your oil and use a big wok because deep frying is not the same as pan frying, the oil will rise up when you put in the kakiage. If you use small pan, you'll have lots of oil to clean up afterwards
    - Keep your tempura batter cold. Cold batter will make your stuff crispier
    - Pay attention to the oil temperature. If the oil not hot enough, you'll end up with a soggy kakiage (which is my first batch). Bala bala still can take lower temperature because of the way its batter is made, but not kakiage.