Ketupat (rice cakes)

Ketupat is a rice dish that's served on special occasions, most commonly on the Lebaran (Idul Fitri) holiday at the end of Ramadan, but also on birthdays and weddings. Mrs K likes to cook it at any time.

Ketupat, by Meutia Chaerani from Wikimedia Commons

More krupuk!

Mrs K has been going to the enormous Wembley Sunday Market for the last couple of weeks, mainly because one of the stalls is run by an acquaintance of our daughter. She hails from Wolverhampton and used to run an online Indonesian store tied to her real store, but that seems to have disappeared. But most Sundays she sets up stall flogging hard-to-find Indonesian treats, such as the krupuk pictured below.

Krupuk (prawn crackers)

If you're used to the tasteless prawn crackers usually served with takeway meals, be prepared for a shock. The Indonesians are masters at creating weird and wonderful variations on the theme, not all of them strictly prawn crackers, but crackers nonetheless, and they're all cooked in the same way - deep frying. They are universally eaten as an accompaniment to almost any meal, or simply as a crunchy snack.

Tempeh? What's that?

Fresh tempeh (image © Sakurai Midori)

Tempeh is wonderful, but elusive stuff. We used to buy it frozen from the Holland & Barrett health food stores, but they've stopped stocking it. It seems like the only commercial UK supplier is Impulse Foods, and there are a few sites selling their frozen tempeh, such as Goodness Direct.

But what is it? It is actually very simple, consisting of fermented, cooked soybeans (the Tempeh.info site has everything you need to know) formed into a firm cake that can be sliced and fried, or mixed with other dishes. It's popular with vegetarians as an alternative to bacon or even hamburgers. We love it, but sadly haven't bought any for ages, so we were looking round the web thinking of ordering some (you can it get in  London's Chinatown or Wembley Sunday Market fairly easily, but we haven't been to town for a while). Our friendly local Chinese store doesn't have any, but they're looking into it.

Sliced raw tempeh (image © FotoosVanRobin)

Then Mr K suggested trying to make it ourselves - by all accounts it's a simple process, and you can get a free sample of the starter culture from Tempeh.info. The main barrier is the incubator, as the tempeh needs to be kept at around 30°C for a couple of days. One blog suggested you can use an oven with just the light on, so we're experimenting at the moment to see how warm that gets. Mrs K isn't totally convinced, but she's happy to give it a go. Of course, then comes the problem of finding de-hulled soybeans - apparently de-hulling them yourself is a bit tedious.

If we go ahead, we'll let you know how we get on, but we're determined to get some tempeh soon one way or another because it's so delicious and very versatile for cooking.