Tempeh SUCCESS again! Yay!

I checked Asian Vegan Kitchen out of the library last week. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I couldn’t resist any book with a title containing the words “Asian”, “Vegan”, and “Kitchen”. In looking for a dish to showcase my homemade tempeh, tonight I chose Spicy Tempeh from this book.

2 Tbsp peanut oil
3 shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 medium tomato, chopped
4 dried red chilies, sliced
2 slices galangal
4 Tbsp palm sugar
2 salam leaves
1/4 cup (60 ml) water
1 Tbsp tamarind juice
1/2 tsp salt
14 oz tempeh, sliced into thin strips, deep-fried
1 cup peanuts, deep-fried
2 Tbsp kecap manis
celery leaves, for garnish
red bell pepper, sliced, for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the shallots, garlic, tomato, chilies, and galangal for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the palm sugar, salam leaves, water, tamarind juice, and salt. Stir over medium heat until the palm sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the deep-fried tempeh, deep-fried peanuts, and kecap manis. Stir constantly over high heat until the sauce has caramelized.
4. Stir with rice, garnished with celery leaves, and red pepper.

I made a few changes, the most significant being I didn’t deep fry anything. I pan-fried the tempeh and just used roasted peanuts. Since the peanuts were salted, I omitted the salt. I used bay leaves instead of salam leaves, and I used tamarind concentrate, not juice, which made it sort of “sweet and sour” in addition to “spicy” (and salty), but i liked it that way.

Mark liked it!

Tigger was ambivalent.

In other news, I will be in San Francisco, my favorite US city (shh, don’t tell New York!) from Saturday through Thursday, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, that’s why. I’ll have my camera and laptop, though, and SF is a vegan haven, so I may pop in to say hi. I’m fairly familiar with SF, but if anyone has any suggestions for must-see or must-eat items, drop me a comment!