Name: How To Make Tenzaru Soba (Chilled Soba Noodles With Assorted Tempura Recipe)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 160 g Dried Soba Noodles; 4 Shrimps; 2 Shiso Leaves; 2 Slices of Kabocha (1 cm thick); 4 Shishito Peppers; 1 Small Eggplant; 160 ml Mentsuyu Dipping Sauce (divided into two portions of 80ml each); 10 g Japanese Leek; 50 g Daikon Radish (peeled); 10 g Ginger (peeled); Wasabi Paste, if you prefer; Cooking Oil, as needed; 100 g All-Purpose Flour (for tempura batter); 26 g Beaten Egg (for tempura batter); 200 ml Cold Water (for tempura batter); *extra All-Purpose Flour, as needed (for dusting the tempura ingredients)

How To Make Tenzaru Soba (Chilled Soba Noodles With Assorted Tempura Recipe)

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Tenzaru soba is a popular dish at soba specialty restaurants, consisting of two parts: tempura and zaru soba (cold soba served on a zaru). The freshly deep-fried tempura pairs perfectly with the soba noodles, making tenzaru soba, also known as tempura zaru soba, a favorite among people of all ages. For udon lovers, there’s even a variation called ten zaru udon, which pairs tempura with cold udon noodles.

Even if visiting Japan to try tenzaru soba or tempura zaru soba isn’t possible, you can make it at home! In this recipe, we’ll show you how to make zaru soba and enjoy it with tempura, so be sure to read through to the end.

Since we’ve already covered how to make tempura and gluten-free tempura in previous recipes, this time we’ll focus on how to enjoy tenzaru soba. While there are no strict rules for enjoying tenzaru soba, following these steps can enhance your experience:

1. Taste the soba first. Begin by savoring the soba noodles on their own. When eating tenzaru soba or tempura soba noodles, you’ll have a plate of soba and a plate of tempura in front of you. Try the noodles without dipping them in mentsuyu or adding garnishes to fully appreciate their flavor and texture.

2. Enjoy the soba with mentsuyu dipping sauce. Take a bite-sized portion of soba noodles with chopsticks and dip the bottom half into the mentsuyu sauce. Enjoy the combination of the noodles and sauce, whether you’re eating ten zaru soba, tempura soba, or soba tempura.

3. Add garnishes to the soba. Enhance the flavor with garnishes like wasabi paste and sliced leek, but avoid mixing all the wasabi into the mentsuyu at once.

4. Eat the tempura. Dip the tempura into the mentsuyu sauce, and feel free to top it with garnishes like grated daikon and grated ginger. This works perfectly with tempura zaru soba, tempura soba noodles, or soba tempura.

5. Enjoy the dipping sauce with soba-yu. You can also add soba-yu (the water used to boil the soba noodles) to the remaining mentsuyu sauce and enjoy it like a warm soup. Soba specialty restaurants often serve soba-yu, and if you have leftover wasabi, you can add a little for an extra kick.

These steps are ideal for enjoying tenzaru soba, but feel free to enjoy it however you like!

Instructions

1) Gathering the Ingredients & Recipe Preparations

oil for frying tempura and tenzaru soba garnishes

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Gather the ingredients together.

Sift the All-Purpose Flour for the Tempura batter.

Tip: Make sure to use chilled or ice water for the tempura batter. This prevents the batter from developing gluten.

2) Preparing the Tempura Ingredients

making a cut at the stem of the eggplant

cutting the eggplant in half and making cuts on the surface to fan out the eggplant

fanning out the eggplant to create a more even cooking surface

flattening the shrimp with the back of a knife

flipping the shrimp to the other side and repeating the same process

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Prepare the ingredients for Tempura in the following way.

Shishito pepper: Remove the stem edges and make a cut in the middle to prevent bursting during deep-frying.

Eggplant: Make a shallow cut around the middle of the calyx, then peel the pointy edge. Slice into 5 mm thick pieces, keeping them connected at the bottom. Open them like a fan. This helps the eggplant cook evenly inside and enhances its visual appeal.

Shrimp: Peel off the shell and remove the pointed shell on the tail. The tail contains water, which can cause hot oil to splash during deep-frying, so remove the edge of the tail. Make a shallow cut on the back to expose the vein, then remove it. Also, make three shallow vertical cuts on the belly side and gently straighten the shrimp by bending it backward.

Japanese leek: Cut into thin slices.

Ginger and daikon: Grate them with a grater and drain the excess moisture using a strainer.

Expert's Tip

If you are looking for a flour that can be used for both tempura and cakes, this product is perfect. Its fine texture makes tempura crispier and cakes fluffier, helping you achieve the ideal texture in both.

3) Making the Tempura Batter

mixing the beaten egg and cold water together

mixing the all purpose flour and egg cold water mixture together to make the batter

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Combine the water and beaten egg. Mix them well with chopsticks.

Add this mixture to the sifted all-purpose flour. Use a whisk to mix until some lumps remain. The texture of the batter should be fluid and slightly lumpy.

4) Coating the Tempura Ingredients In Flour

Coat the Tempura ingredients lightly with all-purpose flour.

5) Dipping the Tempura Ingredients in the Batter

Dipping the Tempura ingredients in the tempura batter

Dip the Tempura ingredients into the batter we just prepared.

6) Deep Frying the Tempura

checking to make sure the oil is hot enough for deep frying

adding the prepared tempura ingredients to the hot oil

adding tempura onto a draining rack and deep frying the rest of the ingredients in batches

coating the fanned eggplant in flour, making sure to cover every crevice

dipping the prepared eggplant tempura into the hot oil

removing excess fried tempura bits from the oil with a strainer to prevent them from burning

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Prepare a deep frying pot and pour enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least 3 cm. Heat it over medium heat until the temperature reaches 170-175°C. You can test the temperature by dripping some batter into the hot oil. If the batter sinks deeply and then floats to the surface, the oil is ready for deep-frying.

Deep-fry the Tempura ingredients as follows:

Shishito pepper: 40-50 seconds
Kabocha: 2-3 minutes
Shiso leaves: 20-30 seconds
Eggplant: Add the eggplant to the oil as close to the surface as possible to help it hold its shape and avoid burns. Deep-fry for 2-3 minutes.
Shrimp: 1 minute 30 seconds to 2 minutes

Once the ingredients are deep-fried, drain the excess oil on a tray with a wire rack.

Scoop out the Tempura bits and clean the oil if it becomes covered with debris.

Tips: Fry in small batches to avoid dropping the oil temperature too quickly. For a crisper texture, sprinkle some batter on the ingredients with chopsticks while deep-frying.

7) Boiling the Soba Noodles

adding the soba noodles to boiling water

stirring the soba noodles in boiling water

draining the soba noodles and then running them under cold water to cool them down

draining soba noodles of all excess water

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Along with the deep-frying step, prepare a pot of boiling water and cook the dried Soba noodles according to the time indicated on the package.

Drain the hot water using a strainer and cool the noodles under tap water. Drain any excess water.

8) Serving Tenzaru Soba

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Place the Soba on a Zaru (shallow bamboo basket). Arrange the Tempura, Mentsuyu dipping sauce, grated Daikon and ginger, sliced Japanese leek, and wasabi separately as shown in the picture below.

Enjoy!

Megumi Moriya

Megumi is a recipe writer based in Chiba, Japan. She carries a Bachelor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies and is interested in creating content about Japanese cuisine and traditional confectioneries. Megumi is most interested in making Japanese recipe content, and in her free time, she likes to play the piano, make handcrafted goods, and hula dance. She hopes to inspire Japanese Taste readers to make Japanese recipes at home and of course share more about Japanese culture.

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