Japanese prawn fritters with shiso and salted plum (prawn shinjo-age)

Ingredients

• oil, for deep-frying
• Japanese salted plum (umeboshi), to serve
• 5 okra, pierced and blanched in salted water, to serve
• raw mountain potato, cut into batons, to serve

Shinjo-age fritters

• 400 g raw prawn meat
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sake
• ¼ cup grated mountain potato
• ½ large onion, grated or diced
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup potato flour
• 10 shiso leaves, finely sliced

Chilling time 30 minutes

Instructions

Finely chop the prawn meat. Place in a Japanese grinder (suribachi) or food processor. Add the salt and sake and process until quite smooth. Add the grated mountain potato, grated or diced onion, egg and potato flour and mix until well combined. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan to 170°C. Using wet hands, shape large spoonfuls of the prawn mixture into balls. Roll in the sliced shiso. Drop the balls into the hot oil and fry, in batches, for 3-4 minutes or until the prawn is cooked through, and the shiso on the outside is crisp but not browned.

To serve, remove the seeds from the umeboshi and finely chop the flesh. Serve the shinjo-age with the umeboshi flesh, blanched okra and batons of raw mountain potato.