Ten don, a popular dish in Japan is a very common dish, presentation :
Ten don, large bowl of delicious tempura rice
Ten don 天丼 is a donburi (often abbreviated to don is a dish consisting of a large Japanese rice bowl with fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients on it) with tempura (fried vegetable or seafood fritters) on top The dish is served in a large Chinese bowl and topped with tentsuyu てんつゆ/天汁 (hot broth served with the tempura). This dish is very common in tempura-ya (tempura restaurant), soba-ya (restaurant of soba) and shokudo (restaurants in shopping malls) in Japan. The most popular tempura used in ten don is ebi (shrimp) tempura but you can also find vegetable tempura and mushroom tempura for example.
The word ten don is an abbreviation of the word tempura and donburi. You can find it easily in Japan because it is a popular dish.
The taste of ten don
Ten don is a must-have dish in Japan, its taste is unique! The mixture of rice with the lightness of tempura are very well combined. The tentsuyu sauce (composed of mirin soy sauce and dashi) which covers the bottom makes it less dry in mouth. It is a sauce that often accompanies tempura.
If you like tempura, we advise you to try or make ten don you will not be disappointed. This dish is quick to cook! You can accompany it with a miso soup or a salad and this dish is eaten with Japanese chopsticks.
Tenju, a derivative
You will also find under the name of tenju, it is the same as ten don except that it is served in a square lacquered dish and will be much more expensive than the classic ten don.
The recipe of the ten don
To make your ten don you need :
- Japanese rice
- Fresh shrimps, vegetables and mushrooms cut into pieces
- Frying oil and sesame oil to add to the pan.
- Dashi, mirin and soy sauce to make the tentsuyu
- Tempura batter: one egg, flour and ice water
For more details, you can see our tempura recipe and our Japanese rice recipe.
It is a quick recipe to make, 30 minutes maximum and quite greedy. You will find on this link our miso soup recipe which goes well with ten don.
