YEAST-RISEN (VEGAN) TEMPURA BATTER

Tuesday 19th June - update.
Today I made another batch of these - and found the batter a little on the thin side. I halved the recipe and added 25g more flour*. This time I included slices of mushroom:

These are so tasty! Never having tried deep-frying food before I discovered this, I'm still amazed by how quickly everything cooks!

And it's not just the speed - half of these were enough for my evening meal! So a cheap meal as well as a quick one!

29/4/12
First time I've made these - and I was well impressed!

These are the leftovers - which didn't survive until the morn!  

Battered sausages, etc:
(Because I was in a hurry, I used about 50g of apple juice as some of the liquid. This helps the gluten form just that little bit quicker. And if you made the batter an hour before you needed it, you would only need half as much yeast as I did.)

Ingredients:

For the yeast batter

360ml lukewarm water

*200g strong white flour (I first made this with 150g of flour, but found it a little thin)

10g fresh yeast

Filling

One Linda McCartney sausage and one Fry's sausage - both of which are vegan. I cut each sausage into half, then split the pieces lengthways. I also divided a 1cm thick slice of Fry's vegan polony into 6 pieces.

Method:

Whisk the ingredients together and leave for 10 minutes.

I placed about 1cm of vegetable oil in a small saucepan, which I heated up quite hot. I tested it with a drop of batter and found it was done within about 15 seconds.

Using tongs, I picked up a piece of sausage, dipped it in the batter and turned it over to coat it properly, then placed it in the saucepan. I immediately slid a palette knife under the sausage to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pan. After 15 seconds or so I turned it over, gave it another 15 second, took it out and put it to one side. Then I fried the next piece.

These I kept warm on a simmering pan of curry sauce and had them with the sauce and some spicy wedges for dinner.

The ones in the pic above were what was left (this is a very filling dish!) and I made the mistake of just having one (cold) before retiring for the night. I have to say the rest followed pretty quickly. Even cold they were delicious!