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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 4 - Indonesia



Indonesia was another easy one for me, the meal was planned as soon as the country was drawn! Long time readers of this blog may recall that I struggled to enjoy tempeh for a while before finding some burgers and lasagne that I loved and even after all this time I'm still a bit wary about trying out new tempeh recipes. As tempeh originates from Indonesia I simply had to be brave and delve into a tempeh dish. A recipe called Oseng Oseng Tempe (Fried spiced tempeh) had been on my list to try for ages which is from World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown.

This has been one of my favourite cookbooks for years and definitely the most utilised non-vegan cookbook on my shelf these days. Celia's recipes have rarely left me disappointed, the photography is gorgeous and it covers food from so many countries. Up until now I had only made one of the Indonesian recipes which was a fantastic rendang curry using jackfruit during MoFo last year which still remains as my favourite way to eat jackfruit.

Oseng Oseng Tempeh is a simple dish of thinly sliced tempeh strips shallow fried in oil with shallots and is served with a delicious spicy mixture of cayenne pepper, soy sauce, lime juice, sugar and tomato paste. After the slices were fried there was none of that weird taste I'm not fond of and the young man who is an even bigger tempeh sceptic than me also gave it the thumbs up! I served this with Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) which was also from World Vegetarian Classics as it's such a typical Indonesian dish and it seemed like a perfect partner for the tempeh. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to this sort of thing and this recipe needed a bit more spice for my liking so I'll probably tweak it a little next time. An interesting note in the cookbook states how it is best to use long grain rice that has been cooked 2-3 hours in advance for Nasi Goreng, fresh rice is no good neither are leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge overnight.

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Did you know?

Most people are aware that there are several volcanoes spread across the islands of Indonesia but how many of you have heard of Mount Kelimutu? It is a unique volcano which contains 3 summit crater lakes that are coloured blue, green and red.


Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

22 comments:

  1. I am EXACTLY the same with tempeh! Currently I'm only eating it in thin burnt strips bacon-style. I can't bring myself to try thicker pieces that aren't burnt to a crisp!

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    1. I'm hoping that my tastebuds will get used to it one of these days! Thick pieces are definitely no good for me either.

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  2. Tempeh is great when it works. This sounds delicious. The info about rice for nasi goreng sounds a bit difficult - not for people making dinner after work!

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    1. I do appreciate tempeh now when it does work but am still a little wary of certain recipes that use it. It's not ideal to prepare rice 2-3 hours ahead of time on a worknight but I did notice a huge difference when I was frying the rice, the grains separated with minimal effort and the nasi goreng was nice and fluffy as it should be.

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  3. I'm hesitant with tempeh too. I used to be a huge tempeh lover, and I actually preferred it to tofu. At some point it switched, and now that fermented taste is kind of unpleasant to me. Unless it has a strong flavoring over it, I'm not too keen on tempeh. That jackfruit curry sounds marvelous!

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    1. I didn't know you had switched away from tempeh, I haven't heard of that happening to anyone before. The jackfruit curry is really good!

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  4. I love, love, love that cookbook. But I have completely overlooked that recipe. Must make soon.

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    1. Yay for someone else with World Vegetarian Classics! It's so easy to overlook recipes in there, I find new things I want to make every time I go back through the book.

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  5. It took me a while to enjoy tempeh too, my favorite ways to enjoy it are as tempeh bacon or in the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Vegan Brunch. This looks awesome too, I'll have to try something similar soon.

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    1. If I wasn't so hooked on tofu bacon I might try tempeh bacon again! Tofu bacon has been the preferred facon around here and nothing has been able to surpass it. Thanks for the reminder about the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes, I've made them once and enjoyed them. Must try them again soon.

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  6. Oh my...that sounds so yummy!

    ~Have a lovely day!

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    1. Thanks affectioknit, and thanks for stopping by!

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  7. This dish looks good. I might have to add that cookbook to my ever growing shelf. I haven't cooked with Jackfruit but am going to try it soon!

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    1. It's a great cookbook especially if you enjoy trying dishes from around the world. Jackfruit is wonderful in this rendang curry or as pulled pork.

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  8. I'm still in the pre-enjoying tempeh stage (it's going to figure somewhere in my MoFo, I think) so I'm going to have to try the recipes that converted you! Any other tempeh tips, send them my way!

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    1. My recommendation would be not to try recipes that marinate big slabs of tempeh! From my experience tempeh doesn't seem to soak up the marinades as much as tofu and tempeh still ends up tasting a bit fermented, even when you pre-steam the tempeh. I've loved recipes where the tempeh has either been chopped into mince sized pieces, grated or in this case fried!

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  9. YUM! Gosh I miss tempeh and wish I could cook up some of this right now!

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    1. Not fair, I wish you could eat some of this without it making you ill!

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  10. Yay, I'm glad you (and the young man) have found another way to enjoy tempeh! I think it's at its best fried with Indonesian spices. :-)

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    1. I haven't given up on tempeh and am trying new recipes every now and then. I wasn't sure about this recipe as the plain tempeh strips were fried and then served with the spicy sauce but it worked really well.

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  11. When we were in Porto, I ordered the one vegan dish on offer in a non-vegetarian restaurant and discovered, to my dismay, that it was raw vegetables and raw tofu and raw tempeh-based burger. It was meant to be a vegan raw meat plate (something I'd missed in the translation) but it was disgusting, the tempeh especially! This looks much, much better :)

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    1. Raw tempeh - eeewww! That would have been challenging trying to work things out in a different language. Hope you made up for the mishap with a nice dessert!

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