New Ways to Control Your Tempeh

Hi Everyone,

Having eaten a veganish (some seafood on occasion) macrobiotic type diet for almost 48 years, I didn't find out about tempeh until about 7 years later,

I took a tempeh making class in San Diego about 3 years later from European who made various types of tempeh to sell to a clientle that he had developed.

My go to way of prepping and cooking tempeh was to 

cut up the tempeh into cubes, 

steam it, 

then place it in a jar with ginger juice, mashed garlic, coriander powder, cumin powder, and soy sauce, 

cover and shake vigorously until the liguid and spices thorough permeated the tempeh 

and then placed the jar in the freezer if I was in a hurry or 

the refrigerator if I wasn't and 

after the marinated tempeh had cooled sufficiently

I would heat some oil in a frying pan, 

cook some slivered yellow unions until almost translucent and 

add the tempeh and

 then some twice rinsed sauerkraut laid on top of the tempeh 

add some water until it immersed the sauerkraut, and

 then after the water had reached the boiling point, covered it with a lid and 

turned the heat down to simmering and 

cook until most of the liquid had evaporated and either serve it or 

pack it with my brown rice, vegetables, and beans for my lunch while I was out working.

I've discovered 3 things over the years about tempeh:

1. was that the same old recipe for tempeh that I ate almost every day kind of got boring (even with slight variation).

2. that steamed tempeh didn't taste rich enough, and

3. that single strain culture tempeh wasn't digestible enough for my system.

About 7 or so years ago Masao Miyaji of Masao's Kitchen in Waltham, Massachusetts, started serving tempeh everyday that tasted rich and was quite digestible, and 

at the same time he started selling  some of the tempeh, amazake,and rice milk products produced by Rhapsody natural Foods 

so very quickly I visited Rhapsody's website that was printed on the label and 

started buy the tempeh and natto, then some amazake & rice milk, the ready to eat tempeh, the mello red and sweet white misos, the mochi, the vegan eggrolls . the Rhapsody Sampler, and turned into a regular customer.

The secret to Rhapsody's tempeh is that they uses two cultures, instead of one like all of the other commercially produced tempehs.

The reason that this is important is that like natural leavened or sourdough whole wheat bread that use multicellular wild yeast culture to ferment, predigest the wheat or rye,and produce the gases that allow the dough to rise instead of the single celled baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Rhapsody tempeh uses the 2 fungal starter cultures: Rhizopus oligosporus & Rhizopus oryzae to ferment and catabolize (break down) the soybeans, making the tempeh more digestible that other single culture tempehs on the marketplace; and much more nutritious and nourishing to our bodies, too. 

So Rhapsody Natural Foods solved my third problem for me by producing a more digestible tempeh but how to tackle the #2 problem and I haven't tried baking the tempeh 

but I have finally started shallow frying it so the following recipe comes from a cookbook 

(which was first introduced as The ABCs of Vegan Home Cooking:The art of simple and wholesome cooking by Masoao and Evelyn Miyaji Volume 3  Basic Techniques & Recipes BEANS, TOFU, TEMPEH, WHEAT GLUTEN  which was home published sometime after June 2011 with 56 pages selling for $20.00 at the restaurant. 

After five of these 8" x 6" plastic comb bound cookbook-lets were produced 

[Volume 1 Basic Techniques GRAINS, NOODLES, MISO SOUP, SEAWEED; 

Volume 4 Basic Vegetable Cooking and Recipes I;  

Volume 5 Basic Vegetable Cooking and Recipes II; 

Volume 6 Sweets the Miyajis changed gears  and 

in 2014 came out with a 10' x 8' 230 page paperback they was selling at the restaurant for almost $50.00 and a little less on Amazon but that edition quickly sold out and I saw editions selling on amazon for more than $1,000.00 but 

the interesting thing is that the Miyajis started selling 2 digital editions of the book for $5.99 and $4.99 at the same time as the paperback but last year they deleted one of the digital downloads so you can get the other for $4.99, here )

I altered the recipe slightly to make it easier to follow using Chef Sato Saturo's recipe format:

(Key: *=organic

         t = teaspoon

         T = Tablesoon 

         C = Cup 

Water is best natural spring, artisian well, or filtered

Tempeh Fry Prep

Amount of servings 3

Ingredients

         Dry

8 oz package of  *tempeh

         Wet

6 Tablespoons *Safflower or *Sunflower oil

        Equipment
sharp: Japanese vegetable, chef, or paring knife
large cast iron pan w/ or w/o lid
medium size bowl
tongs
spatula
double sheet paper towel (optional)
range

         Directions
1. Slice tempeh into 30-60 equal sized pieces or 16 equal sized short fingers slicing the tempeh width-wise
2. Heat pan to high add the oil then turn down to medium or medium low.
3. Fill the pan to cover all the flat surface with tempeh pieces
4. After one side of tempeh pieces turn golden brown flip to fry the other side.
5. If necessary add a little more oil.
6. When done either place all the pieces on a towel, add rest of the ingredients to the pan (or pot) in proper sequential steps per recipe, or  baking dish with the rest of the ingredients before placing in the oven .

And now for a completely unique recipe that I borrowed and slightly modefied using Chef Sato's recipe format from the Natural Foods Cookbook: Vegetarian Dairy-Free Cuisine by Mary Estella 

Tempeh and Vegetables in Coconut Milk

2 T *sesame oil

1/2 lb (8oz) *tempeh cut into pieces

1/2 t *cumin

1/2 t *coriander

1 to 2 C *coconut milk

1 small *yellow onion sliced moons thin

1 1/2 T *kuzu or *arrowroot thickener dissolved in 1/4 C water

2 - 3 t *shoyu or sea salt to taste

1 t *rice vinegar

( this recipe ratio 2 T *coconut cream to 3/4 c water or 5 t *coconut cream to 2 cups water to make coconut milk)

(optional 4 *small vegetables zucchini, yellow squash, bell pepper, & carrot plus chili pepper or tumeric, and scallions garnish from this recipe)

Equipment

large cast iron skillet with lid

cups for tempeh, kuzu, coconut milk

cover for pot

tongs for tempeh

wood spoon for stirring

blender

gas stove

Directions

1. Heat oil in pot

2. saute tempeh pieces both sides till golden

3. add spices, stir for 1 minute then

4. add coconut milk

5. lower flame and simmer

6. add vegetables to simmering tempeh.

7. cover

8. stir vegetable(s) occasionally

9. when vegetables are tender, add thickener, vinegar,

shoyu (or sea salt)

10. after 3 minutes turn off & serve

 

Note: if using the same pan or pot that the tempeh was fried in that it is still in, then the sesame oil is unnecessary! 

If you are having difficulty finding any of the ingredients you can find many of the via my  Glossary Of Macrobiotic Food Terms 

Thank you, very much.

R. Bruce Paine