Tempe

This is a fusion dish between western and indonesian ways. Tempe is original and traditional food from Indonesia, made from soyabeans. This could be your healthy vegan burger! :)

This dish is very popular in Central Java and East Java regions, Indonesia. They usually cook it wrapped in banana leaves, but since I did not have much banana leaves left in my freezer, I used a heat resistant ceramic baking dish to cook this.

I had some tempe and thought of making tempe bacem (sweet fried tempe), but I was too lazy to do it properly. So I used my homemade rub instead.

Have you heard of "Tempe" before? It is a cake made of fermented soya beans. It is rich in protein and it tastes good, too. In Indonesia people usually deep fry it and it is a great add-on for whatever dish they are enjoying. When it is not a meal time, people would snack it, eat it with raw chili or with kecap manis sauce (sweet soya sauce).Basically tempe can be seen and treated as a substitute for flesh or chicken. It needs 10-15 minutes cooking time, although there is no harm in eating the "raw tempe", as the beans are perfectly cooked in the making process.This dish is called Tempe Manis Kacang (sweet tempe peanut). I created it to see if it was a success, and it was!If you are wondering which one is the tempe on my picture, it is on the top right, the brown ones.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people here in US know ‘tofu’ but most of them don’t know ‘tempe’.Like ‘tofu’, ‘tempe’ is also made of soybeans, but it is a whole soybeans product with different nutritional characteristics and textural qualities.‘Tempeh’ or ‘Tempeh is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. It contains higher protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins. It has a firm texture and an earthy flavor, which becomes more pronounced as it ages. (Source: Wikipedia)

Tempe is a common food in Indonesia, especially to lower class people. I remember when we was poor, all we can eat is Tempe with rice and sambal like this. Brings back lots of memories. Still my favorite food until now.

I wanted to make chicken teriyaki, but I only had tempeh left in the fridge. My partner likes sweet and savory dish, so I added a bit of sweet soy sauce.

Tempeh Kemul are snacks made from tempeh fried in a flour batter. KEMUL, in Javanese means "blanket". In Wonosobo, tempeh kemul is sold by street venders as a companion for Bakso or Mie ongklok and sometimes also sold separately.These are very popular with the public as well as with tourists in Wonosobo, either foreign or domestic. Tempeh kemul is a favorite food for the people of Indonesia, and usually served hot. Tempe kemul can be served as a side dish to accompany warm rice, or as a snack accompanied by a green chili.Tempe kemul along with Geblek and Mie ongklok, identical to Wonosobo. Tempe kemul uses wheat flour, rice flour, and the most important is the wet tapioca (derived from the juice of grated cassava). Seasonings used are even more complete, namely: garlic, coriander, turmeric, candlenut, a little kencur, salt and flavorings. And to add flavor and aroma, chopped chives can also be used. But when it is hard to get chives, you can also use finely sliced scallions.There is a dish similar to tempeh kemul, called "tempeh mendoan." Although at first glance it seems no different, if we look closely, there are some differences, like color (mendoan tends to be white, and tempe kemul yellowish), batter (mendoan uses flour with herbs and water, and tempeh kemul uses a mixture of flour and rice flour together with other ingredients), seasoning (spicy mendoan simple, tempeh kemul slightly incomplete) and texture (mendoan tend to be soft, and tempeh kemul crisp).

Bacem or baceman is a cuisine of Central Java, also an area in the eastern province of Yogyakarta (Mataraman). Yogyakarta people like bacem which is sweetly flavored, namely with the distinctive flavor of brown sugar. “Bacem” actually is a way to preserve food products, usually tempeh and tofu. “Dibacem” means soaked in sugar water or salt, so that foodstuffs become durable.Sometimes, tempeh bacem has no savory taste and smells unpleasant. This is usually caused by many things, such as poor quality of tempeh. Tempeh is a processed food made from soybeans fermented with yeast, so yeast quality is what will affect the quality of tempeh. To minimize the tempeh not so pleasant smell, the key is in the initial processing of tempeh - When preparing the boiling water, put tempeh in with bay leaves and salt before adding other spices.Furthermore, to get a taste more savory and delicious, you can use coconut water to boil tempeh and other spices. The use of coconut water will also soften the texture of tempeh, so that when eating tempeh it will not feel hard. Coconut water will make bacem more sweet and delicious.Tempe bacem is a sweet and tasty, delicious dish served as a complement to a family dinner. No need to bother with difficult prep, because making tempeh bacem is quite simple and practical.

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.

We are Indonesian, tempe and ta kwa is our most favorite food in my country, there's no a day without this 2 fellow soya bean made from, love it so much! Are you Indonesian? If you don't know how to cook this simple dish you're not truly Indonesian :)

TEMPE KARE is already common in Indonesia, but here I added vegetables such as carrots and cabbage that provide additional fresh flavor in the recipe. Moreover, in this recipe I grill the tempeh before cooking to give it a unique, smoky smell.KARI is the name for various types of food cooked with spices to have a sharp and peppery flavor. Kari is a cuisine of South Asian origin, mainly from India which has been extended to all countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. Indonesia also has a similar cuisine (using a variety of spices and coconut milk), which even has been recognized by the international community.Rendang Padang and curry dishes such as curry chicken, curry brain, and curry goat is one type of curry with a hint of spice. Sate Padang also use the sauce, which is another form of curry. There are curry flavored snacks, eg. martabak and martabak Kubang, too. Instant noodles in Indonesia also have chicken curry flavor.Spices are used are lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal, bay leaves, nutmeg, turmeric, shrimp paste, cumin, coriander, and coconut milk.TEMPEH is a native Indonesian food made from the fermented soy beans or some other material that uses some kind of Rhizopus, such as Rhizopus oligosporus, Rh. oryzae, Rh. stolonifer (bread mold), or Rh. arrhizus. The preparation of this fermentation are generally known as "tempeh". It has high nutritional quality so the addition of tempeh to cereals and tubers improves the nutrition, like everyday dishes consisting of rice, corn, or Tiwul. (A piece of fried tempeh (50 grams) is sufficient to improve the nutritional quality of 200 g rice. A mixture of rice, tempeh, corn-soybean, cassava-tempeh, the ratio 7:3, is good enough to be given to children under five).