I've decided just to write about cooking rather than always wait until I have a recipe "just right" to post. It will help me recreate delicious things so I can put together a recipe later. These posts will be noted "Food Porn" to show that there's no recipe and have the tag FoodPorn as well, just my going on about something delicious.
Onto the food porn.
Best. Tempeh. Ever. Seriously.
We had in the house pounds of string beans from the garden and Christie asked for tempeh tonight. I stood around in the kitchen for a few minutes before deciding to make a stir-fry. Made up a marinade of ginger, garlic, shoyu, red miso, agave, peanut oil, canola oil, hot chili oil, and water all whisked up together. Diced tempeh went into this yummy mix.
Pulled the the tempeh out of the marinade and set it aside. The tempeh then went into a rather hot wok with some canola oil. Kept tossing it and frying with a lid on until the tempeh was browned. Then I added in a little bit of the marinade to coat the cubes further.
Some sweet onion, a carrot and a little red bell pepper for color were cut up small. All were stir fried with a pile of the green & yellow beans chopped up. After they cooked until the beans started to soften I added in most of the marinade. After the beans were cooked all the way I added the tempeh into the pan and tossed everything together.
Cooked up some rice noodles, vermicelli, which were the weakest part. Tasty, but not great. I'm really going for more of a Vietnamese bun. The noodles were a fine, just not as great as the stir-fry. Added some shredded, Farmers Market lettuce and sliced up cucumbers from the garden.
Yes, I will admit to nearly dancing in glee in the kitchen as this came together. We sat out on the deck in the breeze to enjoy. It was a lot of fun sitting a few feet from the golden string beans growing up the south side of the deck as we ate them for dinner.
Will have to try this whole thing out again with the "right" noodles as well as some cilantro, lime to squeeze over the top and mung bean sprouts. Those things would be a really nice addition to all the flavors. Christie also noted it would be great to have the cucumbers in a little rice vinegar as well. A recipe will be forthcoming on this and really, pictures soon.
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OK, I'm a tempeh n00b despite being vegetarian for 20 years :) I love tempeh and am happy to eat it when someone else makes it, but when I've tried to make it, I've never been impressed. There are many opinions on how to properly prepare it. Did you really just marinade & stir fry or do you steam the tempeh or do anything else to it?
ReplyDeleteHey, Dawn! Tempeh can be a little challenging at first. I had some totally unsuccessful dishes at first. Luckily, like you I'd had some well prepared ones so I kept trying!
ReplyDeleteChristie suggested that I post up a quickie "how-to" on cooking with tempeh, so keep an eye out for it showing up soon!
Quick answer - Commercially available tempeh usually comes pre-steamed. So, yeah, I just marinade and stir-fry, grill or even braise (or some combo of all of those).