How to cook tempeh - best recipe with cooking tips

empeh is an Indonesian product made from soya beans. I first encountered it in Jakarta where my friend's cook fixed me a vegan dinner with meat replaced by fried tempeh. When raw, it smells yeasty and mushroomy and tastes bland and doughy. When cooked, it has a lovely meaty texture and a nutty flavour reminiscent of fried bacon.
It is delicious with freshly made long-grain rice and sambal manis (mind you, it is NOT the same as sambal kecap manis, which is a sweetish soya sauce!) This is how I had it for the first time in a remote mountain village on a stopover during our 25-hour Trans-Sumatran Death Trip From Hell back in 2001.
It took me some time to replicate that taste. There are a lot of tricks of trade that you need to know to fry your tempeh perfectly:

1. SMALL EVEN PIECES: Cut the tempeh loaf into even 3-4-mm cubes, this way they all will get cooked evenly.




2. CAST-IRON WOK: Heat very well a thick-bottomed pan/wok before adding oil. Cast-aluminium ware works just fine too. Heat is distributed evenly in cast-metal ware making sure that everything is cooked thoroughly and evenly.
   


3. HOT ODOURLESS OIL: Pour about 1.5 cm of non-smoking cooking oil (mustard rapeseed or grape seed oil is good, olive oil will NOT do) and wait until it gets hot. I normally wait until it just starts ever-so-lightly smoking.


4. AMPLE OIL: Don't save on oil, if you've poured too much you can always strain the tempeh and cut the rest with a paper towel. If you don't put enough oil, you'll end up with a soggy, anaemic final product.
   


5. EXPOSE ALL PIECES TO OIL: Add the cut tempeh and make sure it gets all covered with hot oil immediately. This will form a crust on top of each tempeh cube that won't allow it to soak in too much oil.
   


6. KEEP STIRRING: Make sure the tempeh cubes get evenly fried on all sides.
   


7. MODERATE HEAT: The fire should be medium high. If it is too high, tempeh will burn, if it is too low, tempeh will absorb too much oil and end up greasy and soggy. All stoves vary, so experiment a bit to get the temperature just right.
   


8. DON'T OVERCOOK: Fry until crisp and dark golden brown, NOT dark brown. See the top picture, that's the colour you should aim for.
   
   


9. ADD FLAVOUR: A dash of fish sauce or shoyu for veg(etari)ans closer to the end adds a depth flavour and saltiness. Plain salt just makes it salty. Meh.

It comes out so good you can have it as a snack in its own right, or use it instead of meat in various dishes. Just remember it does not need any additional cooking. Also don't let it soak in sauces too long, as it will become soggy. Add before serving to already cooked dishes. The quickest yet supremely delicious dish you can make with tempeh is gado-gado.

The right kind of tempeh is hard to come by. A lot of truly weird stuff is marketed under that name. In London, where I live now, I saw what looks more like vacuum-packed goobers. At £4.65 for 100g, twice the price of Select Angus beef, it must be A-list celebrity goobers. The New Loon Moon Supermarket in Chinatown, however, carries the frozen variety of proper tempeh. Close, but no cigar. That's why I always bring back 2 or three fresh loaves from Amsterdam. Thanks to Holland's past colonial connections, even local chain supermarkets carry it there. Your best bet would be to ask around in your local Indonesian restaurants where they get hold of their tempeh. Or if you have a lot of free time on your hands, make it yourself from beans and tempeh starter available to order online.

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