While writing a portion of this book in the San Juan Islands, I noticed a young black-tailed deer standing on its rear legs to nibble branches of vine maple leaves, but it only pulled down gold leaves to eat, not green leaves. When I shared this story with my husband, he told me that our dog was eating gold maple leaves too! Turns out the golden leaves are edible! In fact, yellow maple leaf tempura—known as momiji tempura—is a tradition in Osaka, Japan. Only yellow maple leaves are gathered, and always from the ground.
After being preserved in salt water or dry salt for one year, the leaves are ready for tempura. Not wanting to wait, I soaked our delicate leaves in a saltwater bath for one week. My friend Lisa Harper dreamed up this recipe and then battered, fried, and photographed these beauties. Golden and crisp as the autumn air, they were almost too pretty to eat!
Vine Maple Leaf Tempura
Ingredients
FOR THE PRESERVED LEAVES
- 12 to 20 yellow vine maple leaves
- 2 tablespoons salt
FOR THE TEMPURA
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cold carbonated water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- pinch of salt
- Canola oil, for frying
- Maple syrup, cinnamon, or ice cream, to serve
Instructions
- Gently rinse the leaves in a bowl of cold fresh water. Drain, stack and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix the salt with ⅓ cup of fresh water. Stir to dissolve the salt. Put the leaves in the bowl, and push them around in the solution to be sure salt water is bathing each leaf on both sides.
- Cover and leave at room temperature for one day (or as long as one week if you need to wait for an opportune time to make tempura).
- Pat the leaves dry before coating with batter. To make the batter, add the flour, water, sugar, sesame seeds, egg and salt to a mixing bowl and whisk until just combined. Set aside.
- To a cast-iron skillet or other heavy pan, add oil to about ¾ inches deep. Heat to 375°F.
- Dip leaves into the batter one at a time, coating both sides. Drop into the hot oil. Fry for approximately 20 to 30 seconds on each side, or until nice and golden. Set on paper towels to cool before serving.
- Drizzle with maple syrup and sprinkle with cinnamon, or serve atop ice cream.