Tempura battered veg with sweet chilli sauce

After visiting Raun Thai the other week I wanted to make my own tempura battered vegetables and made a quick sweet chilli dipping sauce to go with it. It was a quick dish to make and is such a nice vegetarian starter or great to share. I used mushrooms, peppers, courgette, red onions and sweet potatoes for mine but you don’t have to use these and there are plenty of other vegetables like aubergines and baby corn which work just as well.

Sweet chilli sauce ingredients:

½ cup white wine vinegar
¼ cup water
1 dessert spoon chopped chillies, seeds removed
½ dessert spoon chopped root ginger
1 tbsp corn flour
3 tbsp water
¼ cup sugar

Method:

·         Bring all the ingredients to the boil except the corn flour and the 3tbsp water.

·         Reduce to a medium low heat for 10 minutes stirring occasionally

·         Mix the water into the corn flour and whisk ¼ at a time into sauce until mixture is thick enough

·         Taste and add more chilli or sugar if you want it to be hotter or sweeter

Tempura batter ingredients:

1 egg

2 tbsp flour

½ cup ice cold soda water

¾ tsp. baking powder

Method:

·         Beat eggs

·         add water and whisk

·         add flour and baking powder and whisk until smooth

Tempura battered vegetables

·         Button mushrooms quartered

·         Large chunks of red pepper

·         Slices of courgette

·         Red onion rings

·         Thin slices of sweet potato

Method:

Heat a deep fat fryer to 180°c and coat the vegetables in the batter. Fry the vegetables that will take the longest to cook first like the sweet potato and the quickest ones like the onion rings last. They only need a couple of minutes to cook, then take them out and put them on some kitchen paper or something to drain the oil. Serve up and enjoy.