Tempeh Goreng

The first time I understood the Indo-Dutch table properly, it was not at a rijsttafel with silver warmers and too many small spoons. It was at a weeknight table where one dish of rice, one vegetable, one sambal, and a small heap of tempeh goreng did the work of a feast. But let me tell you a secret: the little fried side dishes are often where the meal speaks most clearly.

The name already tells you the method. Goreng means fried in Indonesian, plain as a kitchen instruction, and tempeh is the Javanese fermented soybean cake that Dutch cooks learned through Indonesia and then carried home through memory, migration, and the toko, the Indonesian-Dutch food shop. History and cookery, they cannot be separated. In the Netherlands, tempeh goreng sits comfortably beside boiled potatoes in one house and next to sambal goreng boontjes in the next, because Dutch food has never been as sealed off as outsiders like to imagine.

What matters here is dryness. Salt the tempeh lightly, let the surface lose its dampness, then fry the slices until the edges go nut-brown and crisp under your teeth. Finish with ketjap manis, the thick sweet soy sauce, only at the end, because sugar burns before wisdom arrives. Hou het altijd simpel: crisp tempeh, a dark glossy coat, and a bowl passed around the table before anyone starts making speeches.