Asian ingredients, like the ones for Japanese tempura with wasabi mayonnaise and seaweed salad, are often available from supermarkets or Asian shops. If you have difficulty finding things like wasabi or seaweed, replace them with mustard/creamed horseradish and raw spinach respectively. Instead of the shabu shabu sauce, you can make a sesame oil vinaigrette. 

Main course for 4 people

Ingredients

  •  about 40g / 1 1/2oz mixed seaweed for salads
  • 10 tbsp shabu shabu sauce (Japanese sesame dressing)
  • 300g / 11oz finely sliced white or savoy cabbage
  • 4 tsp wasabi paste
  • 8 tbsp mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
  • 750g / 1 lb 10oz small mushrooms
  • 100g / 4oz whole wheat flour
  • 50g / 2oz rice flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 225ml / 7 1/2 fl oz water
  • fine salt
  • oil, for frying

Preparation

  1. Soak the seaweed for 10 minutes in plenty of cold water. Drain squeeze out any excess water and mix with the cabbage and shabu shabu sauce.
  2. Mix together the wasabi paste, mayonnaise and soy sauce.
  3. Clean the mushrooms and remove the stalks.
  4. Sieve both flours and quickly mix with the eggs, water and 1 tsp salt. (Don’t stir for too long; you don’t want the batter to be smooth, it needs to contain some lumps.)
  5. Dip the mushrooms, one at a time, in the batter and ease into the hot oil. Deep-fry 6 mushrooms at a time until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.
  6. Divide the mushrooms over plates. Serve with seaweed salad and wasabi mayonnaise on the side.

Instead of dipping whole mushrooms in the batter, you could also slice them first. Doing this, you gain delicious mushroom crisps. 

Try also our tasty mushroom appetizers.

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