Let us use this thread to share our go to Tofu and Temheh recipes.
ETA:
Many of the recipes (that I will be posting below) come from a Cooking Workshop that I took many moons ago.
Mapo Tofu. Can’t remember where I got this recipe, but it’s very good.
8 oz tofu
½ rounded teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
1 tbs oil
Âľ c chopped mushrooms
1 tbs doubanjiang
1 ½ tsp fermented black beans, optional
½ tsp minced fresh ginger
Dash red-pepper flakes
1 tsp regular soy sauce
ÂĽ tsp granulated sugar, plus more if needed
Fine sea salt
2 tsp starch dissolved in 4 tsp water
Cooked white rice, for serving
Cut the tofu into 3/4-inch cubes and put into a bowl. Bring a kettle of water to a rolling boil. Turn off the heat and when the boiling subsides, pour hot water over the tofu to cover. Set aside for 15 minutes.
Toast the peppercorns for 2 to 3 minutes, until super fragrant and slightly darkened. Let cool briefly, then pound with a mortar and pestle.
Set a strainer over a measuring cup, then add the tofu to drain; reserve 3/4 cups of the soaking water, discarding the rest.
Reheat the wok or skillet over high. When hot swirl in the oil to evenly coat, then add the mushrooms and stir fry until browned. Add the doubanjiang, the beans, ginger and red-pepper flakes. Cook about 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Add the soy sauce and sugar, stir to combine, then add the tofu. Gently stir or shake the pan to combine the ingredients without breaking up the tofu much.
Add the reserved 3/4 cups soaking water, bring to a vigorous simmer, and cook for about 3 minutes, agitating the pan occasionally, to let the tofu absorb the flavors of the sauce.
Slightly lower the heat and correct the seasoning, if necessary. Stir the starch slurry, then stir in enough to the mapo tofu to thicken to a soupy rather than a gravy-like finish. Sprinkle in the ground peppercorns, give the mixture one last stir to incorporate, then transfer to a shallow bowl.
Serve immediately with lots of hot rice.
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Also this right here:
This is what I bring when anyone asks me to bring a salad. It gets hoovered up in minutes.
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Tofu Vegetable Stew
Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon dried Savory
1/4 teaspoon dried Thyme
1 teaspoon dried Basil
5 Tablespoons Tamari Soy Sauce
1 1/2 cups vegetable water (from below)
1 Block Firm Tofu cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 rutabaga 1/2 inch cubes
3 medium potatoes 1/2 inch cubes
4 carrots halved and sliced
1 large onion diced
2 stalks celery sliced
250 grams ~9 oz of fresh chopped green beans
- I usually make this in the winter and use a small 750 gram bag of chopped green beans.
Adding more than the recipe calls for because we are quite fond of green beans.
Method:
In a heavy skillet melt butter
whisk in flour
adding the herbs and slightly cook the roux until golden
Stir in Tamari
Whisk in the vegetable water from the cooked vegetables (from below)
Toss cubed tofu lightly in cornstarch and brown in butter
Cover the vegetables with water and cook until softened.
The water from the vegetables will be used in the gravy (above).
Butter a casserole dish
Add:
cooked vegetables
Tofu
gravy
to casserole dish
Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes
Serve with:
Steamed broccoli
Fresh buttered whole grain bread
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Ginger-Garlic Tofu
Ingredients:
1 pound block cut into (10) 1/4 inch slabs or 1/2 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic crushed
1 inch fresh ginger grated or 2 tsp Ginger powder
1/4 cup Tamari soy sauce
1 cup filtered water
Method:
Arrange Tofu in an 8x11 inch baking dish
Mix the Ginger, garlic and Tamari in 1 cup of water
Pour over tofu slabs or cubed tofu
Bake in 350 degree F oven for 25 minutes
Serve with:
Brown rice and broccoli
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what type of tofu do you usually use?
This butter tofu recipe is a hit in our household.
I use ghee (real ghee, not clarified butter) where the recipe calls for butter or ghee. I use coconut milk where the recipe calls for cream or coconut milk.
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For mapo, soft (but not silken).
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Tofu Vegetable Stew is one of my favorite dishes. I make it especially often in the summer when I can find a variety of fresh vegetables.
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Welcome aboard !
Would be very interested to hear if anyone uses tempeh. It seems much less popular than tofu; and my experience with it is that the taste/texture is pretty meh. But I’d like to like it. One of these days I’d like to try making my own tempeh (fermenting beans with Rhizopus fungus) to see if that might be better.
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Tempeh is tricky because the flavour is stronger and the texture is firmer than tofu.
I completely agree, prefer tofu over it because tofu is more versatile one can even crumble it and add it to scrambled eggs (handy when feeding a crowd). @Vecchiouomo even gave me the idea to sub it for the beef stroganoff.
I have a few tempeh recipes and will post the ones that our family has enjoyed.
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Tempeh Tuna
ingredients:
1 block/200g tempeh, steamed for 10 minutes, drained and crumbled
2 stalks peeled celery sliced
2 radishes grated
3 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup homemade or Hellmann’s Mayonnaise
1 TBSP cider vinegar
1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil (the type used to make salad dressing)
Fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Method:
Mix all ingredients together
Spread on your favourite lightly toasted bread.
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Tempeh Fajitas
Ingredients:
1 pound tempeh steamed for 10 minutes
1 green pepper sliced into strips
1 red pepped sliced into strips
3TBSP extra virgin olive oil
(8) 10 inch flour tortillas
2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1 1/2 cups homemade canned fire roasted tomato salsa (I use Inspired Tastes salsa recipe video link posted below)
Marinade:
4 tsp oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp fine sea salt
4TBSP freshly squeezed orange juice
4 TBSP apple cider vinegar
Method:
Drain the tempeh which has been steaming for 10 minutes and cut and slice through tempeh to create 12 equal portions. Toss in the marinade and let sit for 1 and 1/2 hours.
Fry tempeh in an inch and a half of oil (I use peanut) until lightly browned adding the peppers and cook till tender.
Warm tortillas by sprinkling a little water and wrap in foil (5 per bunch) in oven for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees F or
Microwave in tortilla warmer for about a minute on medium for about 5 tortillas.
We do it stove top (in lightly oiled heated nonstick pan about a minute per side on medium low heat) when we want to linger and chat.
Fill the tortillas and assemble them by folding up the bottom then the 2 sides folded in.
I use the inspired taste recipe for salsa:
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Have you tried any of these?
Or is this the type of food that you would not normally enjoy?
My girlfriend only eats fish and chicken no sausage or bacon.
There is a mock bacon, mock sausage, and marinated tempeh bites.
I eat tempeh often, like the texture and nuttiness. I just use it as “meat” in many dishes, ie “Bourguignon”, “goulyash”/“goulash”, “mince”, “roasted duck”, “fajitas” etc. Look up Indonesian recipes. There’s one you flavour tempeh with kecap manis (sweet soy soy).
It’s nice enough that I can just fry it till crispy and flavour with soy sauce and sesame sauce.
Below are some of many tempeh dishes I’ve made:
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Thanks @Olunia! this is a novel way to use tempeh for me, never would have thought of it!
Most recipes fry the tempeh in oil, like in your tempeh fajitas recipe. That also sounds like a good one.
Sheepish to say, but the other ingredients in the recipes seem key to bringing the tempeh along – as I said, even though I tried to like the intrinsic taste/texture of tempeh, I never could get that excited about it.
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Thanks @Presunto! The photos of the tempeh dishes look delicious!
It is cool to hear that you like tempeh’s texture and nuttiness. My take on the texture is that it is kind of a pasty-bean texture, more firmness would be better – which you can get by frying it in small pieces to get crispy, but you really have to fry it quite a lot to get that (in my experience).
I know that tempeh’s origins are in Indonesia – it would be nice to try it in authentic Indonesian dishes. But I doubt my home versions would be very authentic, and Indonesian restaurants aren’t that common (in the SF Bay Area). Has anyone had tempeh dishes in an Indonesian restaurant?
Would of course be even better to try tempeh in Indonesia, produced the traditional way on hibiscus leaves!
Thank you, we really do enjoy the tempeh tuna and fajitas.
I took a tempeh and tofu cooking workshop the recipes are the
ones that we cooked together there.
I find steaming the tempeh in a pan with shallow water for 10 minutes and draining really helps.
Also marinating to take on other flavours.
In the video the tembeh bites are cubed marinated in BBQ sauce for 4 to 5 hours then baked.
I’m inclined to try that with Sambal Oelek to give it an Indonesian flair. I did this with tofu (short marinated for about an hour or so) and it turned out well.
I checked my Dishes from Indonesia (a cookbook put out by one of the Indonesian Embassy’s here) unfortunately, no tempeh recipes.
Coconut & Sambal by Sara Lee has about 3 tempeh recipes that I have not tried. The interesting thing is that two of the recipes also have tofu in them.
I did come across an Indonesian Tempeh YouTube video that looks very interesting. However, the Tempeh is either fried in oil or Sauteed in oil.
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