Shrimp Tempura

Where it comes from

Tempura began with Portuguese traders and missionaries in 16th-century Nagasaki, who fried seafood during the fasting days they called quattuor tempora. Japanese cooks refined the technique into lace — ice-cold batter, barely mixed, flash-fried so it shatters rather than crunches. Thai kitchens, forever in love with a good fryer, adopted it long ago. Sweet, snappy shrimp; batter like frost.