Tempura Asparagus with Wasabi Hollandaise

Summary

Ingredients

• 1 kg asparagus, fresh, white or green or mixed, depending on your preferences

For the dough:

• 125 g flour (tempura flour)
• 175 ml mineral water, ice cold
• 1 egg (s)
• 1 pinch (s) salt
• 500 ml sunflower oil or peanut oil for deep-frying

For the sauce:

• 100 g butter
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 tablespoon sake
• 1 teaspoon, heaped wasabi paste
• 1 pinch (s) salt
• 1 pinch spice mix (Togarashi - Japanese 7-spice powder) or cayenne pepper and a little lemon zest

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Instructions

1. Buy asparagus spears that are as thick as possible. Peel the white asparagus, cut off the hard ends from the green and 1 cm from the ends from the white. If the bars are very thick, they should be cut in half lengthways. If you want to eat with chopsticks, you have to cut the sticks at least third.
2. For the hollandaise, melt the butter and strain it so that the whey remains. Beat the egg yolks with the sake in a water bath, slowly add the clarified butter in a thin stream. Then mix in the wasabi paste and season with the spices, carefully keep warm.
3. Mix the tempura flour with the mineral water, egg and salt, heat the oil to 180 ° C. If you don`t have a thermometer, put a small cube of bread in the oil, which should turn brown in 15 seconds. Then the temperature is right.
4. Pull the asparagus stalks through the dough in portions and fry until crispy. Lift out with a ladle and degrease on kitchen paper. Work quickly or keep the finished asparagus spears warm in the oven at around 100 ° C.
5. Then distribute on plates and serve with the wasabi hollandaise. It goes well with chicken or salmon teriyaki.