Recipe #15: Curried Tempeh Salad

This recipe is based on Vegan Thyme's recipe. The changes I made aren't because of any careful culinary consideration, but rather because a) I like fake bacon, and b) I didn't have some stuff and had to substitute.

Tempeh and I--how do I describe our relationship? Honesty is best. The only time I've cooked with it, it looked, tasted, and felt very, very much like a suet cake that I put out for the birds. It was like eating a giant cake of seeds held together with fat.

Vegan Thyme says that the problem is that I didn't boil and marinate the tempeh. I want to like tempeh, so I decided to try another recipe and do the boil and marinate bit.

My food isn't pretty. I'm beginning to accept that.

I do not in any way regret becoming a vegetarian. There are, however, a handful of dishes that I miss. One of those is the chicken salad sandwich from a local cafe. Their version has chicken, mayo, bacon, and not much else, and they serve it on homemade sourdough bread. It's delicious.

In honor of that sandwich, I added veggie bacon to this. Turns out, you can't taste it at all because the spices are so strong. Ah, well.

See the original recipe for all the info. I substituted lime juice for lemon because that's what I had. I didn't put in raisins or nuts because I didn't want to. I used light mayo instead of vegan mayo (vegetarian, not vegan).

I began cooking this at 9:00 Tuesday night and it took about an hour. I let it sit overnight in the fridge and we ate it Wednesday. By "we," I mean a friend and me. Andrew has a bizarre and freakishly strong hatred of mayo in any form. It predates me, and I have been powerless to do anything about it. I made this recipe knowing he wouldn't eat it.*

Here it is on top of a sandwich thin alongside a grilled portobello. I didn't mind the tempeh at all in this form, so boiling and marinating must be the way to go. I find that pretty exciting in and of itself since it opens up another avenue for getting good protein. I may try this recipe again without the curry and see how that is. The curried version is good, but it isn't something I could eat every week. The fact that this recipe lends itself to variations is a bonus.

For all those keeping track at home, I'm now 60% finished with my New Year's resolution of cooking 25 new dishes in 2010.

*Let's be honest: He's probably relieved to just put a hamburger on the grill for himself. I've gotten really weird about food during the past year.