What happened?
Made a batter and sauce roughly based on recipe from Serious Eats. Instead of vodka and water I used 1 and 1/2 cup beer. I didn’t have coconut flakes or baking powder, and used red chili flakes instead of gochugaru.
Instead of frying in a wok, I air fried them at 350F for 18 minutes.
I tried a batch at 400F for 15 minutes. It turned out way browner.
What learned?
The sauce flavor turned out really well. The cauliflower were crunchy, but the batter didn’t feel airy. This is likely because of my lack of baking powder and vodka. Also, 1 and 1/2 cup beer was too much, the batter was a bit too thin. But 1 cup was too late, so should be somewhere in between.
The 400F batch didn’t really taste that different mostly because the sauce overwhelms all taste of the natural cauliflower, but I’d assume the browning would mean more maillard reaction and therefore flavor.
To learn
Try again with batter either using a bit less beer or following recipe with the vodka.