Shrimp, scallops, squid, clams, or oysters tempura (p.377)

As I was recently thumbing through TJOC, I noticed a recipe that I found very annoying-- Shrimp, scallops, squid, clams, or oysters tempura (p.377). There is nothing particularly annoying about the recipe itself, just the fact that I regularly make this and didn't know it was a recipe in TJOC.

We don't eat meat on Christmas Eve, leading to a very shellfish heavy meal. The meal usually includes pasta with a crab/lobster/shrimp sauce, stuffed calamari, fried calamari, fried cauliflower, fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, and a couple more dishes. Delicious! Many years ago, all the fried dishes became my duty. Last year I made TJOC's tempura batter for the fried food and it was amazing.

The recipe is simple--the tempura batter is egg and cold water mixed with flour.

The calamari is cleaned (which is gross and my noni's job) and separated into bodies and tentacles. I chopped the bodies into rings. I greatly recommend drying them as much as you can--every bit of water spits and it's really annoying and dangerous. They don't dry well at all.



The calamari were then dredged in the batter and fried in our ancient and scary deep frier.




YUM! My very favorite dish of the holidays! I honestly think I ate at least half of those rings. And I like them cold too, so very few of them ever make it into the leftover pile.



The benefit of Florida is the beautiful view from the kitchen window:




The best part of our ride back? The airplane had a raffle and I won $75! It came in a little shot glass and it was probably one of the best airplane rides I've ever had :)



It was COLD in Florida this year and is even colder in Iowa. Honestly, our highs have been negative three. Without the wind chill! And there IS a wind chill! So cold. I hope it's more temperate for all of you!

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