Vegan chorizo and potato tacos

SO GOOD!

With homemade vegan chorizo, and perfect fried potatoes (parcooked with vinegar) -- all from Serious Eats.

Homemade tempeh

For a long time I wanted to try making tempeh, but I was put off because it sounded too hard. First, the whole process of splitting and getting the hulls off the soybeans seemed like a big hassle. And second, it seemed like you would need an incubation chamber to keep the fermenting tempeh at a stable warm temperature. But reading Sandor Katz' The Art of Fermentation convinced me that it was totally doable.

I bought my starter culture from Indopal.

I decided to skip the whole issue of splitting and hulling soybeans by using split hulled broad beans (fava beans) instead. I begin by soaking 460g of beans for 24 hours (the long soak at a warmish temperature allows them to start fermenting -- according to Katz this step probably creates a good environment for the tempeh mold to grow in).

The next step is to partially cook the beans. You definitely want to under-cook them: they need to be firm so that they don't mush together. Firm beans allow space between them for the tempeh mold to grow. I simmered these beans for about 12 minutes; they were firm but some were starting to get feathery on the edges.

Next, you let the beans cool to body temperature. It's important that they are dry -- with a batch this size it works well to tip the beans onto a towel and dry them. Then you put them into a bowl and stir through the starter thoroughly (the amount might depend on your particular starter -- mine calls for 1 tsp).

For the next step, you put the beans into sandwich bags, which you have poked some air holes into with the point of a knife. For this batch, I used 4 10x15cm bags. You should smush the beans down so that they fill the bags all the way to the corners.

I like to do all of this in the morning, on a day when I will be around to keep an eye on the incubation. For the first 12 hours, the tempeh needs to incubate at about 28 degrees. Luckily or unluckily for me, in the summer time in my house that's about room temperature, so I don't need an incubation chamber. After about 12 hours, the tempeh mold should have started growing and creating its own warmth. If you were using a heat source to incubate the tempeh, this would be the time to turn it off or down, and this is why I like starting in the morning: the cooler night time temperature arrives at the right time for the tempeh.

(When it's cooler, I've had success using my Excalibur dehydrator as a heat source. I run the dehydrator at its lowest temperature (85F) and put the tempeh on racks on top of the dehydrator, and then cover the whole lot with an overturned bowl to keep the warmth in. I check the temperature every so often, and turn the dehydrator off if it's getting too warm.)

After 24 hours, tempeh:

Smoking

I got a stovetop smoker for my birthday. Since then we've been eating lots of smoked things. Probably my favourite things so far have been smoked tofu and tempeh. Here's the smoker packed full of veggie protein (marinated pressed tofu, tempeh, and two homemade seitan sausages).

For the tofu, I press it overnight and then marinate it for a day in soy sauce with a bit of maple syrup and sesame oil. Once it has been smoked for 30 minutes, it's ready to be sliced thinly for sandwiches. The tempeh just goes in plain -- once smoked, it's ready to be cooked however you like. I like to slice it thinly and pan fry, adding flavourings (soy sauce plus whatever other things) at the end for a glaze.

Other things I've smoked so far: cherry tomatoes (10 minutes), garlic, potatoes (45 minutes from raw to cooked -- too long; better to parcook them before smoking), young coconut, coconut flakes (20 minutes), lemon. The young coconut was a bit odd -- I ended up pureeing it and making a smoky ice cream which was pretty good. The coconut flakes were great as a bacon-y element in a salad. The smoked lemon I didn't know quite what to do with, so it is sitting in the freezer waiting for inspiration to strike.

Mapo doufu

I hate it when Chinese restaurant menus have a tiny vegetarian section, with say, fried rice as the most exciting option, and then they have a whole tofu section which is decidedly nonvegetarian. The Szechuan dish mapo doufu is one of those that I've always wanted to try, and this week I made a version with crumbled tempeh in place of the meat. It was great.

I used this recipe, following the suggestion of one of the commenters to reduce the oil by omitting the chili oil, and infusing the 1/4 cup of oil with both chili and szechuan pepper. (I think that worked okay, but next time I might use the chili oil. I didn't find my chili infusion hot enough.) I also added a bit more water because the tempeh seemed to soak up a lot of liquid.

Green tomatoes

One of my tomato plants died. It was the biggest one, with green tomatoes all over that I'd been eyeing for weeks, and then it was suddenly struck down with a disease (fusarium wilt, I believe).

I harvested all the green tomatoes. I'd never tried them before, but green tomatoes are tasty! We had fried green tomatoes, and on Friday (which reached 38 or 39 degrees C -- that's 100 F) we had gazpacho with red and green tomatoes. But maybe the best meal was this one: roasted green tomatoes with tempeh, based on this recipe for chicken.

Looking at the recipe now, I see that I forgot the basil. But it was delicious anyway, and I really loved the combination of the tomatoes with ginger. The tempeh worked out pretty well. I had marinated it in a sort of all purpose marinade (soy sauce/oil/lemon juice, I think). I had to add some of the marinade part way through cooking because it was starting to dry out.

Righting injustice

Today we found ourselves dogless*, sodden**, and hungry in NYC. I had the bright idea to go to Pukk, a vegetarian Thai place I've heard some good things about. But could we find Pukk? We could not. (I blame the rain falling in our eyes -- Google maps says it's right here.)

Anyway, we tried to console ourselves with lunch at nearby Kate's Joint, but it ended up sucking for two reasons:

1. Given the startling advances in vegan cheese of recent (Teese and Daiya, for instance) what kind of vegetarian/vegan place serves "non-dairy" cheese that's not vegan?
2. I ordered their reuben***. It was not good. I hate wasting food and I couldn't eat it. (I think the main problems were that I was really craving a tempeh reuben, while this sandwich had fake deli meat like this, and that the thousand island dressing tasted weird -- I think it had BBQ sauce in it.)

So, I had to right some wrongs:

Baked tempeh along these lines, sauerkraut, mozzarella, thousand island dressing (vegan mayo, ketchup, plus some ajvar****) on a light rye bread. Yum.

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*He left for Australia today.
**It was raining, and waking at 5am to take one's dog to the airport does not incline one to remember things like umbrellas.
***On the menu it's called the Monte Mount Cisco. The sandwich that they call the Not Reuben has mustard rather than thousand island dressing.
****An untraditional but good addition.

New Orleans / New England

For dinner tonight we had gumbo z'herbes, made with kohlrabi greens, carrot greens, kale, callaloo (amaranth) and beet greens. I used this (apparently inauthentic) recipe. I liked it, but I think the spices were a bit off, or it was missing something. Still, pretty good. We had it with Chesapeake tempeh cakes from Vegan Brunch, which I thought were just okay (but I made a few substitutions -- for instance, I didn't have enough panko -- so they deserve another try, I think).
For dessert we had grape nuts ice cream. It was really good! Apparently grape nuts desserts are a New England thing. I used this recipe, though I didn't add cinnamon and did add a caramel swirl (inspired by what I read about the brown bread ice cream at a shop called Scoops in LA).
I used one cup of mimiccreme, and two cups of oat milk. Since the recipe called for all cream, I added a bit of xanthan gum to thicken the mixture up slightly. I added more sugar than the recipe called for, because I wanted more of a contrast with the slightly bitter caramel, but it ended up a bit too sweet. (The caramel sauce recipe is from The Perfect Scoop. I made 1/3 of the salted caramel sauce recipe, replacing the cream with mimiccreme.)

So I made the Creole red beans recipe again. I just love love love that flavor. Here's the recipe -- it's tried and true. I usually only saute half an onion, then add half a bag (cup your open hands) of dry red beans (kidneys). People here eat this dish traditionally on Mondays, but it took me forever to motivate. I think I bought the tempeh last week, and finally made the beans... Sunday?

Use one package tempeh - steam 10 minutes.

1/3 c brown rice syrup (maple)

1/3 c oil

1/4 c tamari

1t paprika

1t oregano

1/2 t thyme

1/2 t black pepper

1/2 t ground cumin

1/4 t cayenne

"Whisk" (fork fluff) ingredients in a small, heavy saucepan over high heat. Bring to a simmer, then pour over steamed tempeh (I cut it in slices, but cubed is how it ends up). Refrigerate overnight. Amazing, lip-smackingly good sauce. Pour extra into the beans. Use vegan sausage in the dish for a totally insane protein rush.