How could I not have used this extreeeeemely hilarious pun before? I eat ketchup all the time. And, see, I need to "catch up" all the time.
Mimes putting gun to temple and pulling trigger, a la Seth Rogan in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, whose update of the gesture involved adding the messy exit wound spray from the opposite temple.
+++
Ketchup really is my comfort condiment. And it pretty much has to be Heinz brand...nothing else labelled ketchup actually tastes like what I think of as ketchup.
So it was declared ketchup time at breakfast on Wednesday morning. Well, in all honestly it was declared tempeh time: there was a brick of tempeh languishing on the fridge door and it didn't have many good days left. The reason it was still sitting there weeks after I bought it was that I've never successfully cooked tempeh before, without fail my results end up in the garbage instead of in anyone's mouth.
It's just one of those unforgiving foods...if it's not cooked perfectly, it can be really unpalatable and very nearly downright gross. So the secret I discovered today is, you have to make it look like this:
Dark, just before the point where you'd say it was beginning to burn. This seems to require 3 minutes per side in my amount of hot oil.
+++
3 comments:
Mark,
as tempeh is almost staple in Malay/Indonesian acapelago, here's my 2 cent tip - season the sliced tempeh with turmeric and salt before frying them. You can then prepare the sauce to go with it (either soy base or tomato/sambal base). either way, teh salty - slightly sweet tasting sauce - similar to ketchup is perfect for tempeh!
I also love ketchup and tend to have it with fried egg (and a dash of sweet soy) with rice, on a rainy day.
Love to see how adventurous you are with food.
Thanks for the tip, Nina!
I did salt these before frying them, but turmeric is an excellent suggestion...I'll try it next time.
(by the way, I do that same exact thing with a fried egg, though I'm more likely to make a sandwich out of it than use rice)...
I'm actually on a bit of a quest to increase the amount of turmeric in my life, so I'm open to any other suggestions you might have...I've got some fresh turmeric in the fridge at the moment, not sure what to do with it. Maybe this or this.
wow, thanks for the turmeric links...Superb choices. Eh...can't help with choices...may be both?
There are many simple Malay/Indonesian dishes with turmeric in them. have you tried making rendang? if you are feeling very adventurous, try it with turmeric leaves (should be able to find it in the big asian grocers in duivendrecht...)
Please report back on the experiment. am looking forward to it.
nina
Post a Comment