"Pandora" > wrote in message
...

> I know that to make a very light original tempura dough, you must put
inside
> the eggs white lightly beaten.

Hi, Pandora -

I've never tried it with just the whites, although I can certainly
see how that would give you a light batter - the recipe I
always use for tempura is from Shizuo Tsuji's "Japanese
Cooking: A Simple Art" (a book I can't possibly recommend
too highly, by the way - excellent on all manner of authentic
Japanese recipes and techniques), and is just:

2 cups flour
2 egg yoks
2 cups ice water

A couple of things about traditional tempura batter - first,
it is never mixed well; you just fold the ingredients together
loosely, and that's it. It SHOULD be lumpy. (Make it with
chopsticks - they're lousy mixing tools, and therefore
just what you want!) Making the batter with ice water, and
keeping the batter cold (in tempura restaurants in Japan, the
batter is often kept in a bowl which is then itself in a larger bowl
of ice water) is the other important traditional bit. Also,
tempura batter is never made in advance; ideally, you mix it
up JUST before dipping the ingredients and frying them. A
Japanese tempura chef will keep mixing up fresh batches of
batter, a little bit at a time, as needed throughout the evening.

Also, all ingredients need to be completely dry, and dredged
very lightly in flour before being dipped into the batter.

Bob M.