#TempeTuesday: Sambal Tempe Penyet

On tempe - my family's personal favorite.

If you read my first post, I told you that cooking was not love at first sight. When I moved to the Netherlands in 2014, I only knew how to cook rice in a rice cooker (even though I don’t think that counts as cooking). After a few months of living in Maastricht, a small student city with limited access to Indonesian food, I remember calling my mother to ask her for some recipes for simple Indonesian food. The first dish I learned was sambal tempe penyet, a bruised tempe with sambal, served in a mortar and pestle.

Tempe is a fermented soybean that has gained popularity (in the Western world) due to its nutritional profile. Tempe is packed with protein, vitamins, and minerals, which is why a lot of vegans eat tempe as one of their protein sources. But little did people know, tempe is ancient Javanese and has existed since the 1600s. With that, we have an endless recipe for tempe.

Growing up in Indonesia, especially in a Javanese household, tempe is a staple ingredient. From deep-fried, stir-fried, or even as part of other dishes like sayur lodeh, tempe is almost always present at the dining table. Sambal tempe penyet is one of the dishes that my family usually eats during our Sunday lunch. My family’s Sunday lunch is usually very simple and laid back accompanied by a kroncong music playlist that my father rewound many times. The dish has fairly simple ingredients but it never fails to make me add another scoop of rice.

Sambal Tempe Penyet

Thankfully, due to its popularity these days, I can easily get access to tempe in my local supermarket. If you can’t find tempe in your local supermarket, you can most likely find it in any Asian supermarkets. You need a mortar and pestle to make the dish, but if you don’t have one at home, you can use the food processor.

Ingredients:

• 400g tempe

• 5 cloves garlic

• 2 banana shallots

• 5 red chilies

• 2 bird eye chilies (or adjust to your liking)

• 5 pcs lime leaf

• Sunflower oil

• Salt

• Mortar and pestle or food processor.

How to cook tempe penyet:

1. Cut tempe into slices around 1 cm. Soak this in salted water for at least 30 minutes. Pat dry the tempe with a kitchen towel and stir fry in medium hot oil until the tempe is slightly brown. We don’t want the tempe to be crispy at this point. When done, set aside.

2. Boil garlic, shallots, tomato, and chilies for 5 minutes until slightly soft. This makes it easier to bruise in the mortar. When boiled, bruise them with a mortar and pestle.

3. Add one fried tempe at a time into the mortar and pestle, and bruise them along with the garlic, shallots, tomato, and chilies mix. Add salt, pepper, and terasi. If you do not have a mortar and pestle, use a food processor until it reaches a rough consistency.

4. Put back all the mixture into the pan with the remaining oil from frying the tempe. Add the sliced lime leaf and seasoning to the mixture. Stir fry until fragrant and adjust the seasoning as you like.

When done, put it back into the mortar and pestle and serve it with warm jasmine rice with a sprinkle of fried shallots and krupuk.

Through #TempeTuesday, I will be sharing recipes and more on this ancient Javanese ingredient. Stay tuned!