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Tempura donburi with crispy shrimp recipe
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Ten don donburi tempura with shrimp, eggplant, & renkon

This is one of the easiest ten don recipes out there with crispy golden brown tempura shrimp and eggplant. Delicious! Don't worry if you don't have all of the ingredients, as you can substitute some of the vegetables with other ones if you want.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Japanese
Keyword Donburi, Fried rice, Shrimp
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 4 people
Calories 416kcal
Author Joost Nusselder
Cost $10

Ingredients

  • 10 ounces rice (300 g)
  • 2½ ounces tempura flour (75 g)
  • 4 shiitake mushrooms fresh
  • ½ peeled renkon lotus root
  • 2¾ ounces shelled king or tiger prawns with the tails still on (80 g)
  • ¼ eggplant
  • sunflower or vegetable oil

For the sauce:

  • 6 tbsp mirin
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp prepared liquid dashi
  • 2 tbsp sugar

Instructions

  • To be efficient when making a donburi recipe like the ten don, it's good to start with steaming or cooking the rice first since it's the ingredient that takes the most time to cook.
  • Allow the rice to cook in the rice cooker while you prepare the other ingredients. Cut the eggplant and renkon into 1cm-thick slices. This will ensure that they'll get fried faster in the saucepan. Then start removing the shell from the shrimp but leave the tails attached to their bodies.
  • Now use a paper towel to pat the ingredients dry and put them in the fridge to chill. Chilling ingredients is the secret to a nice and crispy tempura batter.
  • Once the ingredients have been chilled in the fridge for a good amount of time, then use either a heavy bottom pan or a deep fat fryer to fry the ingredients to a delicious crisp. Adjust the temperature and make sure it’s between 160 - 180˚ Celsius (320 - 360˚ Fahrenheit) before you fry the ingredients, or if you’re using a deep fat fryer, then its regulator will take care of the heat automatically. Simply dropping a splash of batter into the oil should help you determine whether the oil is ready or not (the tempura batter will sizzle when the oil is hot enough).
  • Drizzle the ingredients with some flour before you dip them into the tempura batter (make sure that each one is covered completely), then deep fry them one by one for about 60 seconds (per side) until it changes into a golden color. Avoid placing more than 2 pieces in the pan or deep fat fryer, as this will lower the temperature of the oil to a less than ideal level. When all the tempura ingredients have been cooked, then remove them from the pan and place them on a wire rack to drain the excess oil. Then lay them on a paper towel to dry them.

And now to prepare the sauce for the ten don:

  • Pour the mirin into a small saucepan and let the alcohol dissolve under high heat. Just smell the steam coming from the saucepan to know whether or not the alcohol is gone. Once it’s gone, then pour in the soy sauce, dashi, and sugar with the mirin and mix them. Then allow it to simmer for a few minutes.
  • Finally, put the rice in a donburi bowl. Arrange the tempura and other vegetables on top, then pour the sauce over them.

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