Good Asian-inflected stir-fry, with a little help from the frozen-food section. This dish came out very well indeed: tasty, a variety of textures, excellent matchup to recipe checklist.
⇨ INGREDIENTS (serves 1)
🌱 150g/5.3oz tempeh (heaped cup, cubed)
🌱 1/4 veg stock cube (low sodium)
🌱 30g/1oz (a handful) green leafy salad mix
🌱 50g/1.8oz (1 cup) alfalfa sprouts
🌱 150g/5.3oz silverbeet/chard (de-stemmed & roughly chopped) (can sub other dark leafy greens, like kale)
🌱 30g/1oz (1 1/2 Tbsp) hummus
🌱 1/4 tsp sweet paprika
🌱 1/4 tsp cumin
🌱 Fresh lemon juice, to taste
🌱 Optional: iodised salt, to taste
⇨ INSTRUCTIONS
Dissolve a quarter stock cube in 2 tablespoons of boiled water. Cube the tempeh, place in a shallow bowl and marinate in the stock water.
De-stem the silverbeet and chop. Wash and drain green leafy mix and alfalfa.
Heat a non-stick pan on medium-high heat. Cook tempeh, about 3 minutes each side. Add the silverbeet, paprika and cumin, and salt if using. Mix well and cook with the tempeh for about a minute or two until silverbeet wilts. Remove from heat and allow to cool before assembling your salad.
In a bowl, add the leafy salad mix, alfalfa sprouts, silverbeet, tempeh and hummus, toss and coat all ingredients with the hummus. Squeeze lemon juice on top and serve.
This batch turned out very well indeed. I finally thought of trimming off the edges, and next time I am going to determine how much weight the tempeh gains from the start (with just cooked lentils and barley) to the end (with the fully developed mycelium).
The tempeh continues to grow, and the increase in volume is now stretching the bag. The slab is now rigid. Some would stop here, but I'm going to let it grow at least another 24 hours.
Another advantage with no oil is that you really need little to no dish detergent. And there are no oil splashes anywhere, of course, making cleanup much quicker.
I like the black lentil + purple barley combination. This morning I had an inspiration: I shall make another batch — 1.75 cups black lentils and 1.75 cups purple barley (measured before cooking and cooked separately), and as I mix in the starter culture, I'll also mix in 1/2 cup sprouted sunflower seed.
The collards looked good at the grocery this week, so I bought one bunch, which was large. The post describes what I did with it and the chayote squash I bought at the same time to go with it.
The tempeh looks good, and in a few hours I'll break it down to store. It just occurred to me that I can first cut off the edges, rounded because the slab grows in a bag, and thus get a nice straight-sided slab to store. The cut-off edges I can chop for a reprise of the broccolini dish I made yesterday.
I really like this one. The texture is lovely and chewy, with a slightly nutty flavour. I like it just air fried, no flavouring needed.
Total fermenting time was about 36‐40 hours.
I doubled the quantity of lentils but kept the amount of lactic acid and tempeh starter the same.
My method in this thread https://mstdn.ca/@EllieK/111705882238171610
My difficulty is keeping the tempeh cool enough. Once it gets going, it gets far too hot. My current batch is 41°C (interior temperature), but the edges feel cool and are not yet entirely ready. It's sitting on a rack in a cool room. The culture gets killed at high temps.
What would you do in this situation?