Washoku Warriors is a group that Fuji Mama started based on Elizabeth Andoh’s Japanese cookbook, Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen. As a lover of all food I was excited to take up the challenge. (Except for fish. Remember folks, fish are friends, not food.)
This time the challenge was tempura pancakes known as shojin kaki age. This is one of my favorite dishes so I was excited to try it. The deep frying made me a little nervous thanks to a previous "incident" but I was still willing to try. (For the record, 350F oil hurts when it runs down your arm.)
Also included in the challenge were some optional recipes. I chose to make three of the five flavored salts to dip the tempura in. I made the green tea, fragrant pepper and black sesame. Super easy! Just two ingredients for each:
Green Tea:
Fragrant Pepper: (Our favorite)
Black Sesame:
Yes, I used French fleur de sel for this. Yes, I know it's stupidly expensive. I figured it wasn't doing any good sitting in the pantry and it saved me from buying more salt.
For the tempura itself, I used julienned parsnips, sweet potato, carrot and burdock:
The burdock was new to me but we liked it. Overall, we liked this dish. I'm already looking forward to the next challenge and plan on making the tempura pancakes again! Here's my final result:
Yummy! Thanks for the challenge Fuji Mama!
