Tempeh cooking 101: Reengineered

Stir fry oil soaked tempeh & cabbage, tofu ... with corn, carrot, and lettuce. 

In my family, tempeh is normally cooked either deep fried or boiled (in gravy like curry). My favorite is of course deep fried, eaten with rice and sambal belacan. In my effort to reduce fat intake, I opted to stir frying instead of deep frying. I then realized how much oil is required to stir fry four by four square inches of tempeh, that is cut into small pieces. A couple of table spoons. Duh. That is 30 m of oil. Otherwise you get either burned tempeh, and if you added water early to prevent burning, you get soggy tempeh.

Grilled Tempeh, rice and veges of bitter gourd and carrot

Sometimes, my late mom did something out of ordinary, regarding tempeh cooking. One is by grilling it in open fire. I copied that by grilling in my toaster oven. It worked!!! She never added anything on the tenpeh. I sometime brushes some oil on it to get it crispier. Perhaps not necessary, next time will grill it longer. Soybean is already rich in oil. Yup, did all that food analysis way back in school in 1980. Man, that was so long ago.


Happy tempeh eating.

Alternative Foodie

Rice included

Rice, sambal belacan with pieces of lemon & tomatoes,
and deep fried fresh water salted fish.

It is never going to be a total change of diet in the house of alternative foodie, rice will always have a place. May hopefully not revert to platefuls as the way I would love to eat my rice, especially when there are ulam (raw salad, Malay style) and sambal belacan to accompany my boiled polished white rice!!! Moderation is a nice word, just a word, mostly ignored while the all out eat urge took over. Just once in a while these days. Alhamdullilah.

Otherwise rice is often served as half cup portion mixed with raw vegetables like bitter gourd and tomatoes, or carrot, topped with  tempeh  and more vegetables.

Bitter gourd is one of the usual ulam eaten with rice among Malaysian, although it is can also be cooked in many ways. My almost no fail inclusion of bitter gourd with my rice arises from the knowledge that it can prevent the quick rise of blood sugar level from eating polished rice. As well bitter gourd being one food item eaten frequently by the Okinawan. Especially those (close to be) centenarian Okinawans. Why not right?

For now. Goodnight folks.
I better get some sleep. This renewed interest with blogging can get one so carried away.

Sweet drearm
Alternative foodie