Thursday, January 22, 2009

Lettuce Wraps

I really enjoyed eating these. Because I am such a nice person, I brought these over to a friend's house to share. EJ was a little angry, I think he wanted to hoard them for ourselves!



Ingredients:
1 block tofu, drained and diced into small pieces
1 package tempeh
sesame oil
1-2 cups chow mein noodles (optional, but I love these things)
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 can water chestnuts, cut into small pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp red chili powder, or to taste
few tablespoons sesame seeds
1 cup peanut sauce (I used a pre-packaged, fat free peanut sauce)
3-6 tbsp soy sauce (depending on how salty you want it or how salty your peanut sauce is)
2 tbsp rice vinegar

whole iceberg lettuce leaves


Tempeh marinade:
1/4 c sugar
1/2 c water
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs rice wine vinegar
2 tbs ketchup
1 tbs lime juice


1. Saute the tofu over medium heat with some sesame oil. Its hard to get the tofu cooked evenly when the pieces are so small, so I just flip the pieces every few minutes until most seem brown.

2. Cut the tempeh into small pieces. Combine the tempeh with the tempeh sauce in a saucepan and stir well. Cover and bring to med-low heat. Heat until the tempeh has absorbed most of the sauce.

3. Combine all ingredients (including tempeh and tofu) in a large skillet. Mix thoroughly. You should taste the mixture too see what it needs - i did this in a hurry and didn't measure everything. I hope my above measurements are accurate!

Spoon into lettuce leaves and eat like tacos. Be careful - they can get drippy! The cool crunch of the lettuce is a great contrast to the heat of the tempeh/tofu mixture. I love this stuff!

Note: I used more tofu than tempeh - I think in the future I will add more tempeh. I like the texture of the tempeh a lot, and I think more of it will make this dish much better.

From Food pics

4 comments:

Sparkle said...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

David said...

Sounds really good. Todd loves lettuce wraps. Two questions though. What's tempeh, and where do you get your peanut sauce? Does Publix have it?

Melissa said...

tempeh is fermented soy protein. it sounds gross but tastes really good. and the peanut sauce i bought is at publix...i can't remember the brand, but its in the organic section. it has a cartoon man on the front, and its salt free and fat free. i add soy sauce to it bc salt free = bland to me.

Anonymous said...

These look really delicious. I am trying to eat healthy and bought some tofu and it has been sitting in my refrigerator. I haven't found a good recipe for it until now. Thanks!