Sake No Shiso Maki Age [鮭のしそ巻き揚げ/紫苏鲑鱼卷]

When I found cheap salted salmon (cured salmon) at the supermarket the other day, I thought of this dish straight away. I am not sure if I should categorize it as one type of tempura, it is a small piece of salmon wrapped in a shiso leaf (青紫蘇/大葉 in Japanese) then coat with tempura batter and deep-fry. 

I bought a pack of shiso leaf for this too but later found out that there were many shiso plants in mil's front yard. So, I "migrated" three tiny plants to my veggie patch for my easy access. By the way, there is also purple colour shiso which is commonly used in vegetable pickling. I especially love the cucumber pickled with purple shiso.

Ingredients:
200 g salmon fillet
Salt
10 shiso leaves

Batter:
70 g tempura flour
Water
Oil for deep-frying

Method:

1. Pat dry salmon fillet with paper towel, cut into 10 equal size pieces.
2. Marinate with salt lightly. If salted (cured) salmon is used, omit this step.
3. Wrap each pieces with a shiso leaf and set aside.
4. Put tempura flour in a bowl, drop in salmon wraps to coat with flour. Remove and shake off excess flour.
5. Add water into the bowl that contain tempura flour, mix briefly to make batter. Lumpy batter is alright for tempura.
6. Coat each wrap with batter and deep fry for 3 to 4 minutes in preheated oil.