Tempura Soba (天ぷらそば)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Tempura nabe, or a heavy small pot
• •Kitchen thermometer, or a dry chopstick for checking the oil
• •Fine-mesh strainer lined with a clean cloth
• •Tebo noodle basket, or a colander
• •Wire rack set over a tray
• •Deep soba bowls

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the dashi

   Wipe the konbu with a damp cloth, but don't wash it. Put it in the cold water and bring it up slowly over low heat, about ten to twelve minutes. Pull the konbu the moment the water trembles and small bubbles climb the sides of the pot. Bring the water just to a gentle boil, add the katsuobushi all at once, then take the pot off the heat. Let the flakes sink for two or three minutes, then strain through a cloth-lined sieve and let it drip on its own.

   Boil the konbu and the stock turns bitter and slick. Squeeze the bonito flakes and you press out strong, oily flavors. Both rules are there to protect the clear broth.
2. 2

   Season the broth

   Measure out 4 cups of dashi for the soup and save any extra for adjusting. In a clean saucepan, simmer the mirin for thirty seconds to soften its raw edge, then add the shōyu, sugar, salt, and dashi. Keep it hot without letting it boil hard. Taste it. It should be fuller than a clear soup but gentler than a dipping sauce, because the soba and tempura need room to speak.

3. 3

   Prepare the shrimp

   Pat the shrimp very dry. Snip the very tip of each tail and scrape out the liquid with the back of the knife, because trapped water spits in hot oil. Make three or four shallow cuts across the belly side, then press the shrimp gently until it lengthens. This keeps it from curling into a tight little comma in the fryer.

4. 4

   Cook the soba

   Boil the soba in plenty of unsalted water, following the package time but tasting a strand early. Drain, then rinse under cold running water, rubbing the noodles lightly between your hands until they feel clean and no longer slippery with starch. Leave them in a colander while you fry the shrimp.

   Rinsing noodles for a hot bowl feels backward. Do it anyway. Soba starch clouds the broth and dulls the fragrance you worked for in the dashi.
5. 5

   Heat the oil

   Pour the neutral oil into a tempura nabe or heavy pot, adding the sesame oil if you like its quiet nuttiness. Do not fill the pot more than halfway. Heat to 170 to 175 C, or 340 to 350 F. If you don't have a thermometer, dip in a dry chopstick: small lively bubbles should gather around it, not roar.

6. 6

   Mix the batter

   Just before frying, whisk the egg yolk with the ice-cold water. Add the 1/2 cup cake flour and stir with chopsticks only a few times. The batter should look loose and uneven, with small lumps still visible. A smooth batter means gluten has formed, and gluten gives you a heavy coat where tempura wants a light one.

   Cold batter and hot oil are the partnership. The cold slows gluten, the hot oil sets the coat before it drinks too much fat.
7. 7

   Fry the tempura

   Dust each shrimp lightly with the extra flour, shake off the excess, then dip into the batter. Lay the shrimp into the oil away from you. Fry for about two minutes, turning once, until the crust is pale gold and crisp and the shrimp is just cooked through. Drain on a wire rack, not flat on paper, so the underside stays crisp.

   The tempura should be fried last. Make it too early and it becomes merely fried shrimp sitting near soba, which is a sad little demotion.
8. 8

   Rewarm the noodles

   Pour hot water into the serving bowls, swirl, and empty them. Dip the rinsed soba into boiling water for ten to fifteen seconds, just long enough to warm it, then drain hard. Don't warm the noodles in the soup broth. Even after rinsing, they carry enough starch and water to weaken the clean taste of the dashi.

9. 9

   Assemble the bowls

   Divide the hot soba between the warmed bowls. Ladle the hot broth around the noodles, leaving the surface calm and not overfilled. Set one shrimp tempura across each bowl, add sliced scallion and a strip of yuzu peel if you have it, and serve at once with shichimi tōgarashi on the side. Eat the tempura while the crust still has its snap, then taste the broth it has begun to season.

Chef Tips

• •Choose shrimp that smell clean and faintly sweet, not strongly of the sea. Sourcing first, always. The batter can protect a good shrimp, but it cannot rescue a tired one.
• •Don't use instant dashi here. In many weeknight cooking a sensible stand-in has its place, but this bowl is stock, noodle, and one fried piece. Powder leaves salt where aroma should be.
• •Use soba with buckwheat listed first if you can find it. Shin soba, new-season buckwheat, is especially fragrant in autumn, but good dried soba is perfectly honorable on a weeknight.
• •For a meatless table, make the broth with konbu and dried shiitake and top the soba with vegetable tempura, such as shiso, eggplant, or sweet potato. That's honmono from the temple-kitchen side, but it is no longer shrimp tempura soba, and it deserves its own name.
• •Serve one shrimp per bowl and leave the broth visible. A Japanese bowl doesn't need to prove generosity by overflowing.

Advance Preparation

• •The dashi can be made up to two days ahead and kept refrigerated. Reheat it gently before seasoning or serving.
• •The seasoned broth can be made one day ahead. Warm it without a hard boil so the dashi stays clean.
• •The shrimp can be peeled, deveined, and dried up to two hours ahead, then kept covered in the refrigerator. Dust and batter them only at the last moment.
• •Do not mix the batter or fry the tempura ahead. Tempura soba depends on the shrimp meeting the broth while the crust is still alive.
• •Cook the soba close to serving. If needed, it can sit rinsed and drained for a few minutes, then be rewarmed quickly in boiling water.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 800g)