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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 10 - Tempeh Tuesdays - Tempe Panggang Bumbu Rujak

During last Vegan MoFo my around the world cooking theme introduced me to an incredibly tasty fried tempeh dish from Indonesia which has totally slipped my mind since. For my next Tuesday tempeh challenge I thought it was time to try out another dish from Indonesia as it is the home of tempeh after all. Earlier this year I had been flicking through a friends cookbook called The Best of Indonesian Cooking and took the opportunity to jot down a few of the tempeh recipes to try at a later time.


The dish I settled on making called Tempe Panggang Bumbu Rujak sounded interesting as the tempeh slices were initially cooked in an aromatic paste, and then finished off on a grill. The remainder of the cooking paste was to be served over the grilled tempeh. The paste was made up of candlenuts, red chillies, purple shallots, garlic, galangal and tamarind and coconut milk with a bruised stem of lemongrass and a couple of kaffir lime leaves add to the simmering mixture.

Although it wasn't stated in the recipe I opted to steam the tempeh slices prior to cooking them in the broth to remove any bitterness. I'm not sure whether this was entirely necessary given the robust flavours in the paste but I wanted to play it safe. The only part of the recipe I was unsure of was the stated quantity of tamarind. Tamarind is available in many forms and I'm not sure that the half teaspoon of puree I used was what the recipe intended as this flavour seemed to be non-existent.


On the other hand the coconut was a bit too dominant for my liking and I will probably play with this recipe a little when I give it another shot. The meal was another great way to enjoy tempeh and the man thoroughly enjoyed this dish so I'll post a version down the track when I tweak it to my liking. I'm pretty happy that the tempeh recipes I've cooked in the past two weeks have been really tasty dishes I would be happy to make again, hopefully the next two will work out just as good!


15 comments:

  1. That looks like a great meal, I really love coconut so maybe I'd like it just the way it is!

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    1. Thanks Jojo, you probably would have liked it this way but perhaps with less chill as it was quite spicy. I like coconut in smaller doses only, it makes me queasy if I eat too much of it.

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  2. I love that you're being so brave to try tempeh in many different ways.

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    1. Thanks Sandy, the experiments have been paying off so far which is great!

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  3. Oh yum that looks so good! I love tempeh in any form.

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    1. Thanks Randi, I think I'm coming around to tempeh finally, it's a shame I got off to such a bad start with it.

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  4. This is a really pretty dish and the tempeh seasoning/marinade sounds like just my kind of thing. I'm not very familiar with tamarind flavours myself but the others sound fabulous even without the tamarind being detectable.

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    1. Thanks Kari, tamarind is a lovely sweet and sour flavour that works well in curries and Asian dishes. I think a little more of it would have toned down the coconut flavour to my liking. It can overbear dishes though so it's wise to use it cautiously but it should be detectable at least.

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  5. I'm always heartened when I see tempeh dishes go well. I really like all the aromatic flavours you've got in there, so when you crack the perfect recipe, you should definitely post it so I can give it a go!

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    1. Thanks Joey! It wasn't that far off being a great meal, Asian foods can be tricky sometimes as the tiniest ingredient that is out of balance can mess up the entire dish. I'm sure I will play with this one again!

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  6. Hooray for liking another tempeh recipe! I would eat this whole serving and ask for more, if I could ;)

    Love your plating, especially the pretty mound of rice!

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    1. Thanks Mandee, hooray for another tempeh win! It was actually quite a deceptively filling meal too.

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  7. glad you are enjoying tempeh - this sounds like a great way to eat it - I have made a tamarind tempeh from alice hart that was fantastic and was almost black with all the tamarind so I would up the tamarind if I was making it.

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    1. Thanks Johanna, tamarind tempeh sounds lovely as I really enjoyed a tamarind tofu recently. I'm very pleased with the tempeh recipes so far!

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  8. Looove tempeh too..
    Originated from my country, indonesia..we have so many different kind of tempeh recipe.. ^_^ 👍

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