Tempe

This entry is for Jo.
The model is my younger daughter (of Bedtime for Toys band, as you can see from the T-shirt)
The dish is fried Tempe, which is a kind of compressed fermented soya bean. You buy it in the market, wrapped in a leaf (Pix 1)…
Pix 2: Don’t take any notice of the chopper. She added that for effect…
This is what the tempe looks like when you unwrap the leaf (which is then discarded. Wonderfully biodegradable and doubtless Western countries would ban it as unhygienic or something). The whiteness is the fungus that ferments the beans.
You coat the tempe in flour and tumeric and fry.

And here on the board you have the finished product. Simple.
Of course there are other ways of cooking it too; this is just the most basic. It is a rich protein source and has a nutty flavour. Usually eaten as a side dish to a rice and curry meal.

Comments

Tempe — 9 Comments

  1. Oh my goodness, that brings back memories. Back in the 80’s my mother had a vegetarian takeaway shop (way before it’s time for Queensland, very hippie). We used to serve tempe burgers and it was wonderful, especially if you left the crumbs of tempe to caramalise in the pan…mmmmm, yummy! Haven’t had any for years.

  2. Yum. (My kind of food, Jo!)

    Glenda, your daughters are quite like you, aren’t they, despite their darker colouring. Pretty girls – must go in the family:-)

  3. Thanks Glenda. It sounds pretty good. I would probably enjoy it. I know, from Indian books and cookery shows, about wrapping food in leaves to cook them (banana being favourite I understand) but obviously never done it myself. Are these recent pix? If so they must have found tempe in the States, right?

    Lovely young lady and yes, I agree, I can see Glenda’s features there.

    Dreamed I bought a house in Malaysia last night. I was planning to look you up. But then I had a bug problem to be dealt with. Weird

  4. Tempe looks so much prettier in leaf than in the shrunken plastic I buy it in here. My favourite way of cooking tempe is with chilli and nutmeg and kecap manis.

  5. Satima, I don’t think pretty was ever a word used to describe me, at least not since I was about four years old!

    Jo, Gillian – people here would say that wrapping it in plastic would ruin the flavour…

  6. A syllogism:
    Glenda’s daughters are pretty
    Glenda’s daughters resemble her
    Therefore Glenda is pretty:-)

    That’s my argument and I’m a-stickin’to it!

  7. I had forgotten she visited you in November – no memory any more!! Guess I will just have to come there to try it.

    Satima, I have The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll and he wrote a lot of those – he called them logic puzzles and you have to figure some of them out.

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