Sambal Goreng Kering Tempe

This is another complimentary dish for Nasi Tumpeng/Kuning (will post Nasi Kuning recipe as soon as I have time to style their presentation). There are few things that I left out in making this dish, such as fried peanut, fried potato chips, and fried white bait (Indonesian calls them ikan teri, and Malaysian calls them ikan bilis). Anyway, either of the combination will do, as I did only fried peanut and white bait for my son’s birthday party.

Tempe is now widely available in groceries stores like Coles and Woolworths. They are great for vegetarian as they are high in protein. However, I am using the plain natural tempe product bought in Asian/Indonesian groceries, as the types of tempe sold in Coles and Woolworths has been either marinated or flavoured. Or at least I think they are, as they have a black brownish fluid on them. To find out more about tempe, click here.

Few tips before you start cooking them:

• Make sure to slice the tempe thinly and deep fried them until crispy. Mine was a bit to thick because I was worried that they would be too fragile to be handle.
• When cooking the chilli mixture, watch the bubbles appeared on the oil, when they start to decrease and almost stop bubbling, then it is time to put salt, vinegar, tomato sauce. According to my mom, it will decrease the spiciness of the chilli as Indonesian chillies are really hit. Once you put the sugar in, you have to work quickly as the sugar will burned off and made the chilli mixture darken in colour.
• Store them in an airtight container to retain freshness, in case you have any leftover.

Ingredients

• 300 gr tempe, sliced thinly and deep fried
• 2 tbsp of pureed chilli
• 1/2 tbsp of pureed garlic
• 2 lime leaves
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• white vinegar to taste
• salt and sugar to taste
• oil for stir frying