Name: Beer-battered vegetables with ginger soy dipping sauce
Yield: Serves 4 as a first course
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon sesame seeds; 325 ml beer; 1 small red onion, sliced into 1cm rings; handful of flat parsley sprigs, well dried; 1 courgette, sliced at an angle; 16 baby asparagus tips; 1 small kumara, skin scrubbed but not peeled, and thinly sliced (sweet potatoes will work just as well); 1 carrot, sliced at an angle; vegetable oil for deep-frying; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 teaspoon fine salt; 150 g flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 3 tablespoons cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar; 1 thumb of ginger, peeled and chopped; 100 ml soy sauce

Preparation info

Serves
4
as a first course

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Vegetables

By Peter Gordon

Published 2007

About

Much as I like Japanese tempura vegetables, I have less success with that type of batter than I do with a good old-fashioned beer batter. So, this dish is really a Western version of the former. Any beer will do – as will Champagne. You want a yeasty fizzy liquid to help the batter work. I added a mixture of black and white sesame seeds to the batter – but nigella seeds, smoked paprika, fresh chopped herbs or even desiccated coconut will give a nice twist. You can use any vegetables, just m