Tempura Eggplant Fingers With Wasabi

Ingredient

1kg Japanese finger eggplants, cut into finger sized pieces
4L cotton seed oil or frying oil

Nori salt
3 sheets of toasted nori
1/4 cup of salt flakes

Tempura batter
200g rice flour
100g plain flour
1 bottle of cold sparkling water or soda water
Good pinch of salt

Wasabi mayo
1 cup whole egg mayonnaise
Wasabi paste to taste

Method

Preheat your frying oil to 180 degrees.

For the nori salt, crush the toasted nori sheets into a fine powder and mix through the salt flakes.

For the tempura batter, whisk together the rice flour, plain flour and salt. Slowly start to add the cold sparkling water. You want to add enough so that the batter resembles really thin paint.

Dredge the eggplant mixture through the batter making sure that each piece is coated.

One by one, drain off any excess batter and transfer to the hot oil. Fry for 3 minutes and then drain off onto a paper towel. Just before you want to serve, refry the eggplant. This will crisp up the batter.

Once they come out of the oil for a second time, season with the nori salt and serve alongside the wasabi mayo.

Recipe by Andy Allen