Fun with Fermentables Volume 2: The Proper Care of Tempeh

When you first become a vegetarian, you're likely to go exploring in an extremely mysterious part of the grocery store that housed things like unusual juice, bean sprouts, expensive salad dressing, a few kinds of un-meat and un-cheese, tofu and a confusing, bumpy tenacious brick called tempeh (temp-ay).

It's sort of like a right of passage to sail the treacherous waters of fake meat and foreign protein substances as one gets their veggie sea-legs under them. Friends tell me they tried to go vegetarian by simply replacing all their meat products with fake vegetarian meat. Typically, if you're not going veg for some very compelling reason, a week of this life is enough to undo any previous fond feelings you may have had toward the animal population. After my first week, I would have considered eating a squirrel, had I gone this route. My experiences in the world of un-meat are bleak and despairing.

However, more traditional sources of protein can definitely be worked with to create a sustainable diet. If you live in Buffalo, like we happen to, there is actually locally produced tofu and tempeh, answering some of the locavore questions regarding a veggie based diet.

If you're considering going veg and worried about how you'll make it, this tempeh could give you the hope you need to make it through. Tempeh is heartier than tofu, which seems to take a while to get used to, and you feel like you're eating a real hearty protein source when you eat it. It is a fermented soy product traditionally, but is also made with rice and other grains these days. Personally, I cannot tell the difference in taste and I go for the highest protein content.



Here's how I roll.  Tempeh can be baked, fried, sauteed, anything! But it is best, before doing any of that, to cook it in broth. It absorbs flavor well at this point, so I start off with my standard broth which is really anything seasonal that I kept peels from. Then I cook that with some veggies that will complement the flavor of whatever the tempeh shall become. In this case, it was going to go into slightly tex-mex tortilla sammiches. So I threw in some cilantro, onions, garlic and a bay leaf or two- not because I know what bay leaves do, but because Italians say it is bad luck to cook broth or sauce without them. I also tossed in some tomatoes that we are STILL ripening in our attic from starting them late in the summer.

When thats gotten good and flavorful, you can toss in slices of the tempeh. I cut mine to a third of an inch thick, typically. The thinner, the more flavorful it will be throughout. Strain out the veggies or don't, then simmer for twenty minutes uncovered.

After this, I took them out and baked them on an oiled cookie sheet until just crispy. I use this method for a healthy "snack wrap" with lots of veggies and some honey mustard. It's a delicious lunch on the quick if you make enough for the week in advance.

Also, you can go from this point to fry them in butter or oil and toss them in wing sauce when crispy. They definitely absorb sauce well and can sting if you put enough on- word to the wise. I actually had a dream that Ryan Miller and I were eating these veggie wings together and he definitely loves them, FYI.

From this point they can also be: fried with fennel and pepper to replace sausage, tossed into chili, tossed into BBQ sauce for a "pulled pork" or "sloppy joe" type situation, put into tacos, cooked with smoked paprika and used in "B"LTs, put into stir fries, and more. Anything you would have used pieces of chicken breast in, these would make a great and tasty replacement, without being a crappy fake meat.

And there's also loads of protein, fiber, blah blah blah. :)