It seems as though Southeast Asian dishes are popping up a lot in my rotation.  We had the Mushroom and Tofu Larb and Tom Kha Gai.  Now I am doing a version of Rendang which is a dry Indonesian curry dish.  A dry curry simply means the sauce is cooked down until it is almost dry and coats the protein.  This is made a lot of times with beef, however, I want to stay away from a lot of beef.  So far when I do beef, the serving size is a bit small.  I want plenty of food on my plate.  I looked around for a vegetarian version and found a recipe for Tofu Rendang from Gormadize.  One thing right off the bat is even though this is a vegetarian dish, the original calories are pretty high.  The original recipe also doesn’t contain any vegetables, which lowers the nutritional value.  Here’s a shocker for you: this dish is low in sodium.  Many Asian dishes are pretty high because of the salty ingredients.  This recipe doesn’t have that problem.  This will be a first, I will not need to delete or replace salty ingredients.  

Here are the original stats:

Here’s what I changed:

• I replaced the full fat coconut milk with a light version to cut calories.
• I cut the amount of shredded coconut by 1/2 to cut calories.
• I added an extra block of tofu to increase the protein.
• I added two sweet potato for vitamin A.
• I added two red bell pepper for vitamin C.
• I added extra tofu and tempeh for added protein.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe:

Tofu and Tempeh Rendang

Serves 8

• 21 oz extra-firm tofu, drained and cubed
• 11 1/4 oz tempeh, cubed
• 6 oz red bell pepper, chopped
• 9.3 oz sweet potato, cubed 
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 15 oz can light coconut milk
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut

Curry Paste

• 2 fresh chilli
• 4 shallots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 inch piece of galangal, peeled and chopped
• 1 lemon grass stalk, while part only (tough outer layers removed)
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp tamarind puree, dissolved in 1/3 cup hot water