Meera Sodha shares leek and tempeh manis vegan recipe

Meera Sodha presents a vegan recipe for leek and tempeh manis, an Indonesian-style dish that fries tempeh until crisp, coats it in a sticky, spicy sweet soy sauce and finishes it with a liberal sprinkle of salted peanuts.

The recipe highlights tempeh as a fermented, compressed soy product with a subtle, nutty flavour, chewy texture and protein comparable to meat, and notes it is widely available in most large UK supermarkets. Sodha cooks the tempeh in a typical Indonesian way and says the only anomaly is the leeks, “making this dish mostly Indonesian but via a field in Lincolnshire.” She recommends sourcing kecap manis and sambal oelek from an Asian supermarket, while makrut lime leaves, palm sugar and tempeh can also be found in many big supermarkets.

Prep time is 10 minutes, cook time 30 minutes and the dish serves four. The method calls for frying tempeh until golden, crisping sliced leeks separately, then combining tempeh with garlic, ginger, sambal oelek, shredded lime leaves, palm sugar, kecap manis and most of the crisp leeks and peanuts; the assembled dish is finished with extra kecap manis, the remaining leeks and peanuts and served with steamed jasmine rice.

Key Topics

Culture, Meera Sodha, Lincolnshire, Tempeh, Kecap Manis, Sambal Oelek