Stir-fried Tempeh with "chai-poh"

A sudden childhood flashback brought back the memory of my late grandfather (Ah Gong). He was a TCM doctor, and had throngs of patients waiting for him to fix their broken legs, dislocated shoulder or the likes daily. I recalled the smell of Chinese ointment as the vision of him at work comes back to me.

Being a Teochew, lunch were simple with muay (rice porridge), salted eggs, salted fish, and my favourite chye poh neng (salted radish omelette). Coincidently, my nickname then was chye poh neng - I'm not sure if I was given the nickname due to my love for the dish or due to the fact that I was as skinny as a salted radish.. Haha!

As a tribute to my childhood favourite dish, I am inspired to cook this dish - stir fried tempeh with salted radish. It is a simple dish, looks unassuming but trust me, it packs a whole lot of flavour that makes it a good accompaniment for muay (rice porridge). I specially use my cast iron wok to achieve the 'Wok hey' that brings this dish to another level, but it's not compulsory. I also made a bigger batch using a whole pack of salted radish to keep some for future use to accompany my homemade chwee kueh, or for use in other dishes.

Hope you can give this recipe a try!

Ingredients

• 1 pack salted radish (I use twin rabbit brand)

• 3 shallots

• 5 cloves garlic

• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

• 1 tsp dark soy sauce

- use only 1/8 of the above for 200g tempeh and keep the rest

• 200g tempeh (I used an assortment of chickpea and buckwheat)

• Chopped spring onions and coriander leaves

Method

1. Wash salted radish at least 3 times. Soak in hot water for 5 minutes. Drain and squeeze out all the soaking water.

2. Finely chop garlic and shallots.

3. Cut tempeh into bite size pieces.

4. Heat oil in a wok and fry drained salted radish for about 5 minutes till fragrant. Add in sesame seeds, garlic and shallot, with extra oil if required. Stir fry over medium low heat till the radish and garlic brown, about 15 minutes. Look and smell rather than rely on time. The mix should slowly brown and crisp up with very nice aroma, like those from chwee kueh.

5. Stir in dark soy sauce and continue to stir fry for another 2-3 minutes to combine.

6. Remove and store all but 1/8 of the cooked dried radish in the wok.

7. Still on medium heat, add about 2 tablespoons of oil, add in the tempeh cubes and stir fry till the tempeh is browned and well coated with the salted radish, about 10 minutes.

8. Stir in spring onions and coriander leaves and serve hot.