The Back Yard Lemon Tree

I love tempeh. I first discovered this wonder food back the 1980’s when it was not widely available commercially in Australia. I was living in Cairns in far north Queensland and once a week I would ride my bike to a house in the next suburb and buy fresh tofu and tempeh from a retired Indonesian man who supplemented his modest retirement by making & selling tempeh and tofu to the hippies of Far North Queensland.

Despite this decades love affair with tempe, I don’t really do anything all that interesting with it. I mainly slice it up, season it and fry it. I use it crumbled as a topping in salads for rice, but most of all I use it as sandwich filling. My absolute favourite sandwich in the world is a tempeh version of the BLT with tempeh, lettuce, tomato & of course avocado. I’m Australian after all and we like to put avocado in everything. A few weeks ago, I was trying to break out of my tempeh rut and I came across this recipe on the NYT’s website. I’ve made a few times since then, it makes a brilliant midweek rice bowl meal. You could serve it with some sauteed greens but my preference is for a bit of fresh, crunchy side salad with avocado of course.

Sticky, Spicy Tempe

Adapted from Ali Slagle via NYT

Serves 4

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar (I use rappadura or coconut sugar)
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 to 2 tablespoons siracha or any chilli sauce you have on hand
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 450 grams of tempeh crumbled into pieces no bigger than 1cm or 1/2 inch big
• 2 green onions sliced up the greens (Optional)

1. First make the sauce. Mix together the soy sauce, sugar, rice wine vinegar and chilli sauce.
2. Heat oil in a stir pan season tempe with a light sprinkle of salt, then saute tempe until golden brown on all sides. Add extra oil if the mixture gets too dry.
3. Add sauce, stir through tempe and cook until tempe is brown and caramelised. Add green onion stir through and serve immediately with rice.