Tendon (Tempura Rice Bowl)

Plan your Tendon

1. This recipe is to guide you through assembling Tendon. Therefore, the recipe does not include the prep and cook time for your tempura, tempura sauce, or steamed rice. Please look at my tempura recipes for more details because the prep/cook time varies depends on serving size and ingredients of your choice.
2. For the steamed rice, please note that ¾ cup (150 g, 1 rice cooker cup) of uncooked Japanese short-grain rice yields 2¼ US cups (330 g) of cooked white rice, enough for 1 donburi serving (typically 1⅔ cups or 250 g). See how to cook short-grain rice with a rice cooker, pot over the stove, Instant Pot, or donabe.

To Use Leftover Tempura

1. If you use leftover tempura from the previous day, reheat the tempura in the oven or oven toaster. Do not microwave as the tempura batter gets too soft.

To Make the Tempura Sauce

1. Follow tempura dipping sauce recipe in my shrimp tempura or vegetable tempura recipes. Let the sauce simmer and reduce until the sauce starts to thicken. You can also add sugar and/or mirin to sweeten a little (optional) as it's tastier when served with steamed rice.

To Make Fresh Tempura

1. Whether you make shrimp tempura, vegetable tempura, or gluten-free tempura, adjust the ingredients based on the number of tempura bowls you plan to make.

To Assemble the Tendon

1. Assemble the Tendon. Put 1 serving cooked Japanese short-grain rice in a donburi bowl, drizzle some tempura sauce on the rice, and place 1 serving shrimp tempura and 1 serving vegetable tempura on top. Drizzle generously the rest of the 1 serving tempura dipping sauce on top of the tempura. Alternatively, instead of drizzling the sauce on top, you can quickly dip the tempura in the sauce before placing it on top of a bed of steamed rice.