Vietnamese dinner for 3

I'm going off topic, branching out to savouries, carried away by the extreme moreishness of tonight's dinner. We had Japanese food the other night for dinner and I had tempura batter left over: googled it and some internet people claim the Vietnamese eat tempura. Well, if it's on the internet it must be true, right? What to eat when you take out the meat? Eat this, baby, eat this!

Jasmine rice: you can figure this out by yourselves. Just make sure you wash, wash, wash the rice first. If you don't have jasmine rice, make plain old white, I won't tell anyone. I threw in a few snowpeas once I figured the rice was done and left the lid on for them to steam.

Peanut Sauce:

this is crazy-good. It's great that you might have lots left over, put it on steamed veg, eat it with crudites, mmmm.

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp cilantro

2 tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 vegetable oil

Whiz all this up in your whizzer of choice. (I use a tiny counter-top whizzing thing and it does the job brilliantly).

Tempura dipping sauce:

1/3 cup mirin

1/3 cup soya

Boil very briefly in a saucepan and pour in a little bowl for dipping.

Vietnamese Tofu:

1 package of firm tofu (or medium firm, throw caution to the wind!)

2 cloves of garlic

5 tablespoons soya sauce

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 bulb of lemongrass, fresh as you can find (should feel somewhat pliable)

Take the tofu out of the container and wrap gently in a piece of paper towel. When it's dry, cut into long, thinnish strips.

While the tofu's drying a little, chop up the bottom of the lemongrass, the bulb part and a bit of the green. You'll have to take off at least one of the outer layers of the lemongrass unless it's super, big-city fresh. Chop it up pretty finely and put it in a mortar. Add the chopped garlic and grind, grind, grind. Or throw it in a machine if you like making noise and washing up stuff. Put it in a bowl or pan and add the other ingredients. Add the tofu and let marinate for about an hour. When it's good and soaked, fry it up. There's plenty of oil in the marinade so no need to add more. Turn that heat up high, slap a lid on and turn the slice over when they are browned. Serve with all the nice goo from the pan (which will mostly have cooked away).

Tempura:

1 egg

2 cups of water

2 cups of flour

Mix egg with water, then watery egg with flour. Heat vegetable oil really high (then I usually turn it down just a smidge, but keep an eye on your tempura and judge accordingly). When the oil's nice and hot, dip your vegetables (we always have sweet potatoes or yams, carrots, broccoli, peppers, and onions are also nice) in the batter. Carefully (this stuff is Hoooot) drop into the oil. Stand there watching it a while. Think your thoughts, don't take any phone calls. When it's browning a tad, turn it over, cook a wee bit more. Take it out, put some more in. Let the stuff that's waiting on a paper towel cool down a bit then give it a test bite. Mmmmm.