Something simple and fun. We love our soybean cake (or “tempeh” in Indonesian language). It can be sliced as thinly as potato chips, or thick chunky slices. Almost always dunked into some kind of sweet and spicy sauce. 

This is prepared the same way all over the country. On street vendor’s food carts, traditional Indonesian eateries, fancy fusion restaurants.  Can be eaten as appetizers, snacks or even as part of many main course dishes.

How to deep fry Soybean Cake

Get one block of soybean fermented cake, slice accordingly. 

Sprinkle some salt on the soybean cake slices

Heat one cup of oil in a small frying pan.

When you can spot some smoke coming out of the surface of the heated oil, the oil is ready to take in the soybean cake. 

Deep fry in batches till brown and slightly dry. One minute each side is plenty.

How to prepare Spicy Chili and Soy Dip

1/3 cup (30 gr) Thai green small chili

1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar

Using mortal & pestle, grind both ingredients for 3 – 5 minutes. 

Mix one teaspoon of the chili paste with three tablespoon of light soy sauce in a bowl. 

Set aside the rest of the paste for future use. If refrigerated, the thai chili base paste can last for a couple of weeks. If one teaspoon is too strong / too spicy, reduce the amount of paste or dilute furthermore with soy sauce.

This is known as “Sambal Goreng” in Indonesian cooking. Any kind of ingredients that can be dried by deep frying methods can be used. Such as peanuts, cashews, potatoes, anchovies with or without meat item. 

They are cooked in spicy-and-sweet-based sauce till dry and the sauce caramelized. The other ingredients are deep fried before mixing them in the sauce. This technique also gives the dish another extra crunch. 

Tempeh, or tempe in Javanese, is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. Wikipedia

Tempeh is the must have ingredient. 

Another exciting ingredient is Stinky Bean / “Petai”. 

Parkia speciosa (petai, sataw, twisted cluster bean, yongchaa, yongchaak, zawngtah or stink bean), is a plant of the genus Parkia in the family Fabaceae. It bears long, flat edible beans with bright green seeds the size and shape of plump almonds which have a rather peculiar smell, characterised by some as being similar to that added to methane gas. Wikipedia

It is an acquired taste. Although I grew up around it, I have to admit that never I ate any until yesterday. They were not bad. The after taste, however, was extremely interesting. I mean “after” taste – such as body odor, body gas, and anything your body secrete after that particular meal is captivating.

Ingredients

150 gr tempe (1 medium sized block)

500 gr potatoes

2 cloves garlic (20 gr)

6 cloves shallots (50 gr)

80 gr long chilis (mix of red and green)

20 gr galangal

40 gr petai (Parkia speciosa)

25 gr palm sugar (3 tablespoons)

60 gr chicken heart (2 pcs)

5 gr preserved tamarind (1/2 tablespoon)

5 bay leaves

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups cooking oil

Instructions

• Mix the tamarind with two tablespoons of hot water. Stir till it dissolves. 
• Slice half of chili diagonally and as thinly as possible. Set aside. 
• In a food processor bowl, add half of chili, half of galangal, shallots and garlic. Pour in ¼ cup of water. Pulse for 30 seconds till it forms thin paste. 
• Wash, peel and cut potatoes into quarters and then slice thinly (0.5 cm / 0.3 inch). Washed the cut potatoes in cold water for five minutes and pat dry with kitchen towel. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of salt. 
• Cut tempe into slices, as thick and bit as the potatoes. 
• Wash chicken livers till water clears. Pat dry with kitchen towel and cut into bite sizes. 
• Deep fry tempe in a saucepan with 1,5 cup cooking oil for 3 minutes – till all turn light brown and crunchy. 
• Using the same pan and oil, deep fry potatoes for about 10 minutes till brown.
• Lastly, fry the chopped livers in the same oil for 5 minutes till dry. 
• Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a wok. Fry the rest of galangal (smashed), pete for 2 minutes in medium heat. 
• Stir in the spice paste and mix well with the rest of ingredient. 
• Add palm sugar, tamarind juice and salt. Saute for 2 minutes. At this stage, the wok / pan will be slightly sticky because the sugar and spice paste start to caramelize. 
• Toss in the rest of chopped chili, bay leaves and 1/2 cup water. Cook for another 2 minutes. 
• Pour in 2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce. 
• Add fried livers and cook uncovered for another 3 minutes. 
• Remove from heat and serve with steamed rice.