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Tenpura Baja Shrimp Tacos

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Baja shrimp tacos are a delicious staple in most taco joints. They are even more tasty with a light beer batter tenpura over the more traditional seasoned flour and egg breading, and a rich, creamy chipotle sauce. Easy, crisp, and fresh these tacos will beat any restaurant.

Tenpura Baja Shrimp Tacos

Recipe by The Tabletop DinerCuisine: MexicanDifficulty: Level 3
Prep time

15

minutes
Cooking time

15

minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 lb shrimp, cleaned and deveined

  • 4 cups frying oil

  • flour for dredging

  • Tenpura batter

  • 1 cup flour

  • 1 bottle of your favorite beer

  • Baja Sauce

  • 1 spoonful mayo

  • 1 spoonful sour cream

  • 2 tbs chipotle en adobo puree

  • 1 tsp paprika

  • 1/2 tsp cumin

  • salt to taste

Directions

  • Remove the tails and rinse your shrimp well and make sure the intestine vein is fully removed. If you wish, you can also remove the blood vessel; this will add about 10 minutes to the prep time. Dry the shrimp well.
  • Mix the cup of flour and beer to make the tenpura batter.
  • Mix the Baja ingredients together in the a bowl until you have a homogeneous sauce. Refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the tacos.
  • Prepare any topping you want to put on your tacos: shredded cheese, lettuce, cilantro, onion, tomato, etc.
  • Pre-heat the fry oil to 350F in a deep pot.
  • Dredge the dried shrimp in the dredging flour and drip in the tenpura batter, shake off excess batter then immediately place into the heated oil. Only fry 8 – 10 shrimp at a time and let the oil reheat. The shrimp only needs to fry for about 2 minutes in the oil.
  • Remove the shrimp from the oil and let drain on a cooling rack or paper towel lined plate or platter. Scoop out any bits of batter from the oil so they don’t burn and ruin your fry oil.

Taco Toppings and Tenkasu

Tenpura is a Japanese dish of lightly battered and briefly fried foods. This recipe uses a well mixed batter, however, if you want a more traditional tenpura texture, mix the batter just before you are ready to start frying the shrimp. Mix the batter with chop sticks or the handle of a spoon or fork. This leads to a batter that has lumps of flour which will cause the batter to take on a crispier and fluffier texture when frying.

The little fried bits of batter that will drip off the shrimp as they fry need to be scooped out. As a result, the oil will not develop a burnt flavor. These flakes are called tenkasu in Japanese, and are kept to be served as a topping or ingredient in other dishes. Furthermore, you can use them as nice crunch in your tacos! You can also use any left over batter and dribble it in to the oil to make alot of tenkasu. I would recommend this as I have found it difficult to find tenkasu in stores, even the Asian supermarkets in my area.

As for taco toppings, the sky is the limit! I like to use fresh and cool toppings that will compliment the hot shrimp. Lime, avocado, tomato, lettuce or a cabbage slaw, cilantro, and a queso fresco or cotija are among my go-to toppings for any taco, and they definitely don’t disappoint with tenpura shrimp.

Let me know your thoughts! I’d love to hear from you and find out if you loved this recipe, changed something or added ingredients.

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