MENDOAN in Banyumasan language, "mendo" means half-cooked or mushy. Mendoan means cooking with hot plenty of hot oil and cooking in a fast time so the dishes are not cooked all the way through. The raw food most often made in mendoan style is tempeh, served hot along with cayenne pepper or soy sauce. Mendoan tempeh can be eaten as a side dish, or snack to accompany a cup of tea or coffee while relaxing. Not only suitable eaten as a snack, tempe mendoan also be a suitable complement eaten with rice or clear broth soup.

Traditionally in Banyumas, tempeh used to cook mendoan style is a kind of wide, thin tempeh --- one or two mendoan tempeh can also be made from ordinary tempeh which is sliced into thin but wide pieces. Mendoan tempeh, is easily found at traditional stalls in the former residencies of Banyumas and Tegal. For Banyumas, travelers buy tempeh mendoan as souvenirs in the Sawangan, Cilacap, Purwokerto and surrounding areas --- which is typical Purwokerto hawker center.

Its unique taste helped this food spread to outside the Banyumas region, to the big cities in Central Java even to Jakarta. This dish can be made regardless of the amount of tempeh or flour, soft mendoan tempeh combined with crisp and fragrant chives makes it very tasty.

There are some fundamental differences between kemul and mendoan tempeh. Mendoan is usually white, originally a typical Banyumas food that has spread to Yogyakarta and surrounding areas. Basic batter used in mendoan usually uses only flour and water mixed with spices like garlic, coriander, salt and flavorings that have been ground. The differences in batter ingredients also result in making kemul tempeh crisp (sometimes tend to be harsh), while mendoan tempeh tends to be soft.

TIPS
 Use thick tempeh blocks that can be easily cut (better, if you have a grain tempeh sheet/unit ). Mendoan Tempeh should be sliced thin to speed up the cooking process in all parts of the tempeh, because thick tempeh would require a longer frying time.

 Use low/moderate protein wheat flour, not the high protein one because it will make the dough tough/clay-like. Using cake flour when making tempeh mendoan will produce a slightly crunchy texture outside and the inside that remains soft.
 Frying mendoan tempeh in hot oil (which is preheated to temperature), is one of the keys to success in the process of making mendoan tempe. Thus, part of the flour that coats the tempeh does not absorb oil. As a result, mendoan tempeh does not get wet by oil.