For this month’s River Cottage Rocks Challenge (set by Jo over on her blog Jo’s Kitchen) the theme was Veggie Heaven! Well obviously I jumped for joy as I could pick any recipe out of my River Cottage Veg cook book but then after thinking for a while I decided to choose a recipe where the main star was the vegetable. I chose to cook Hugh’s Vegetable Tempura with Chilli dipping sauce (page 308) because the vegetable is the main ingredient, it is kept in it original form and it really is the queen of the recipe (I’ve decided vegetables are girls….)
They actually have the recipe on their website here although in the actual book he suggests a range of vegetables and doesn’t tell you to split the runner beans!
I’m not a fan of deep frying anything however I do love a good tempura so I let my distaste for the method go and gave it my best shot. This recipe is so easy to make and if you follow Hugh’s instructions on the order to prepare everything then it’s not too fiddly either.
I chose to use tenderstem broccolli, green beans and slices of green pepper but you could use a whole assortment of vegetables for this. I might try it with baby corn and also cauliflower would be nice too.
The recipe in the book serves 4-6 so I halved it however I’m the only one in the house today so I’m feeling a bit greedy as I tucked in to pretty much the whole lot! I had quite a bit of batter left though s0 I’m sure it’s not too bad! One thing I will say is that Hugh says to serve immediately however I had to plate it up and photograph it so I did eat it a little bit cold. I will definitely make this again with a group of friends and make sure I tuck in when they’re still piping hot!
I should say as well that the dipping sauce was amazing! When I was making it I thought there was no way soy sauce and red currant jelly should go together but I stand corrected. Also the sauce goes a bit thicker when it cools down which is really nice.
I can’t wait for next month’s theme as I love any excuse to cook a recipe out of my River Cottage Veg book! I’d recommend it to anyone vegetarian/ vegan/ carnivore! Also please go check out Jo’s blog and take part in this challenge 
xx
