Tempura white fish and green beans with Dijon, soy and honey dipping sauce

I first started working on this recipe after we had dinner at The Red Cat here in NYC and had their tempura green beans side dish which was fantastic. I went out and bought The Red Cat Cookbook that had the recipe, went home and made it and like I always do I started reworking it because I found that the batter recipe in the cookbook didn't come out like what I had in the restaurant.

Dijon, soy and honey dipping sauce
This part of the recipe is exactly from The Red Cat and is a simple and easy sauce that works with a lot of different foods because of it's sweet and tangy taste with a bit of heat.

1 1/4 cups Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon hot sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3/4 cup honey

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan over low heat and stir occasionally until ready to serve. You can tweak the amount of heat by adding more or less hot sauce to suite your taste.

Tempura batter
Find a good tempura batter is actually really hard because if you look it up you will find ones that use egg yolks or egg whites, white or rice flour, tap or seltzer water and on and on. I have tried around 20 different recipes and this one is the one that I think is the best, most consistent and easiest.

When I fry anything I only use grapeseed oil. It is about double the cost of vegetable oil and can be hard to find I think it is worth it because the food had a much cleaner taste and isn't nearly as oily when it is done. The rice or tempura flour that I use can be found at any good grocery store, asian market or Whole Foods.

2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups chilled club soda or seltzer
2 cups rice or tempura flour.

1 - Beat egg yolks in large bowl
2 - Whisk in the oil slowly until it is blended in with the eggs
3 - Pour in the seltzer.
4 - Add tempura flour and combine with whisk or chop sticks. Do this quick and very briefly. It is fine if there are lumps and it is better to under mix it than over mix it.

The consistency of the batter is important and you will probably have to do a little tweaking to be sure it is right. After I make the batter I will dip a large flat spatula into the batter and then hold it vertically above the bowl. Draw a line horizontally with your finger through the batter on the spatula. If the batter runs through that line right away then it is probably too thin and you need to add a little more flour. If the batter doesn't move at all then it is probably too thick and you need to add a little seltzer. I do this because if it is too thick then it can become gluey and if it is too thin then it won't stick to the food when it is fried.

Frying white fish and green beans
When I cook this I usually cook the fish first since it is larger and will hold on to the heat better than the green beans. I also will pre-heat my oven to about 170 degrees and as the fish is finished I will put it on a baking sheet and put it in the oven to stay warm.

For the fish I use cod, pollack or haddock because you want a large, flaky white fish that can stand up to being fried without drying out. Get french or smaller sized green beans instead of larger ones which will take on too much oil to cook completely because of their size.

1-2lbs Cod, pollack or haddock fish cut into 1-2" chunks
1lb french or small green beans cleaned and ends removed

1 - Take a large, flat bottom pan and fill it up 1/2 to 2/3 of the way with oil.
2 - Heat the oil to 375 degrees
3 - Dip fish in batter and shake off excess.
4 - Drop fish in oil in 3-5 piece batches depending on the size of the fish.
5 - Fry for 2-4 minutes until golden brown
6 - Remove fish to baling sheet and salt. Put in warm oven.
7 - Allow temperature to return to 375 between each batch
8 - Drop half of the green beans into the remaining batter and add them quickly one by one to the batter.
9 - Allow oil to reheat and repeat previous step