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I am so excited for you.
This post contains two recipes that will forever change your kitchen life. How am I so sure? Because it changed mine.
1. Tempura batter
I use this batter for anything and everything I’m frying. It’s light and airy and my gawd it makes an excellent fried fish for fish tacos or a light golden crust for onion rings. Sometimes I’ll cut up sweet potato chips and tempura them and dip em’ in a honey/soy sauce or other times I’ll fry asparagus, broccoli, or green beans. Nothing like taking a fresh veggie and defeating it’s purpose with a little grease. We’re totally breaking rules here.
2. Sweet Thai Chili Sauce
This sauce may or may not be new to you, considering it’s the same sauce I used for my Coconut Chicken. I have experimented with this enough times to confidently say that this is some awesome sauce. Awesomesauce. You can find a sweet Thai sauce in the grocery store for $5 or make your own for less than $3 (depending on what you have). It’s so freaking easy and the the things you can do with it will change your ways. You can leave it as is for a dipping sauce or stir-fry base, mix it with soy sauce (yum), or combine it with light mayo and sriarcha to make an out-of-this-world firecracker sauce. Ever have Bonefish’s bang bang sauce? It’s something like that *drool*.
Now that you’ve been introduced to the batter and the sauce, you can do whatever you’d like with them. I decided to take a big bag of fresh green beans, shallow fry them, then serve them with the chili sauce mixed with some soy.
So if you’re looking for a whole lot of flavor in a minimum amount of time, these babies are for you. Enjoy 🙂
- 1 lb. fresh green beans
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 T. baking powder
- 1/2 t. kosher salt
- 1 t. garlic powder
- 1 c. cold water
- 1 T. sesame oil
- canola oil
- Wash the fresh green beans and snap off any stems.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder in one bowl. Toss to combine.
- Add the water and oil to the flour and mix until a batter forms.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat and coat the pan with canola oil.
- Once hot (drop in a pinch of batter, once it sizzles it's ready!), dip the green beans in the batter, then transfer to the oil (For 1 lb. it took me 3 separate batches, so use 1/3 of your beans at a time). Cook a total of 3-4 minutes, flipping half way with a fish spatula (works best) or until golden brown.
- Transfer the beans to a plate lined with a paper towel to let the oil drain. If necessary, lightly press the beans with a dry towel to rid any extra oil.
- Sprinkle w. sea salt and dip in the Sweet Thai Chili Sauce (recipe attached)
- 1 chili pepper (seeds and ribs removed)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/4 c. white wine vinegar
- 1/2 c. peach or apricot preserves
- 2/3 c. water
- 2 t. cornstarch
- 2 T. light soy sauce
- Once the ribs and seeds are removed from the pepper, chop into 3 pieces and pulse in food processor with garlic until both the pepper and garlic are minced.
- Add to a small sauce pot with the vinegar and preserves. Stir and bring to a boil.
- In your measuring cup, mix the cornstarch and water to make a slurry.
- Add the slurry to the saucepan and stir to combine. Lower heat and gently cook until sauce thickens.
- Once thickened, remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
- Take 1/4 c. of the sauce and combine with soy sauce. Stir to combine.
- Reserve the remaining sauce for some other cool sauces, look below for ideas!
- Combine the sweet thai chili sauce with light mayo and sriarcha for a firecracker sauce that can be used for literally anything! My favorite is to use it as topping for shrimp tacos, yum!
- If you can't find red chili peppers, your grocery store should carry a cherry bomb pepper (it's a little red pepper the shape of a cherry), they work perfectly fine!
