Tempeh is pretty good stuff, if done right. It’s great nutrition, but it’s got a pretty strong taste. I like to precook it in the steamer, at which point it is very receptive to flavors. The blabk bean sauce starts with black beans, lots of raw garlic, coriander, black pepper and vegetable stock. We get some white wine ready, also a little arrowroot in cold water to thicken it at the end.
Sometimes, we get pretty exotic with the veggies, but all I had to work with were onions, carrots and celery! Oh, an broccoli. Can’t get much more regular than that, huh? Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s all about the sauce! And the chilies, which I throw on raw at the end for maximum brightness.
Brown rice and quinoa go together pretty good, and I like to spice it up with a generous grating of fresh turmeric root (olena in Hawaiian) and some coconut oil to give it a little richness. I find that quinoa responds well to it. Just a simple, satisfying meal in the Chinese/Indonesian idiom.
