Against common sense, Tempura is actually a frying technique first introduced to Japan by the Portuguese back in the 16th century. I learned this just recently with a cooking TV show and went online to find a little bit more about it...
Tempura is more precisely a technique of dipping fish and vegetables into a batter and frying them and comes from the Latin word tempora, "times" in English, which refers to Ember Days, meaning the holy days when Catholics avoid meat and instead eat fish or vegetables. There´s another theory for the word Tempura, although not as strong, that says that it derives from the Portuguese word tempero, which in English means seasoning.
As far as the technique is concerned, there´s also the possibility that the Portuguese picked it up from Goa, once a Portuguese colony in India, as it seems to be a variation of a dish called "Pakora".
I was surprised to learned all this simply because nowadays the Portuguese don´t use a batter as light as the one used to prepare the Tempura. Only one dish (according to my research) resembles Tempura and it´s called "garden fishes" (peixinhos da horta in Portuguese). It´s a side dish made with green beans which I haven´t had in years, so if I hadn´t read about it I wouldn´t have been able to make the association by myself...
It looks like this.
I love Japanese food, being tempura one of my favorite dishes. When I was pregnant with my son and forbidden of eating sushi, Tempura was what I used to have instead. Good memories!
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