Data
Fermentation type: rhizopus oligosporus
Edible: barely, see notes below
Tastiness: perfectly OK, but I still regard this as a failure
May 23, 2024Recipe
- 2 kg (after soaking and sprouting, dry weight unknown) Austrian winter peas (Pisum sativum)
- ~1 dl vinegar
- 2 tsp tempeh starter
- (optional) 1-2 tbsp of rice flour
Instructions
- Soak the peas in water for at least 12 hours.
- Sprout the peas until they have about a 1 cm long sprout
- Add vinegar and mix well
- Get the peas as dry as possible. I used a salad spinner. Letting them dry on a towel for a while would probably also work.
- Add the starter and rice flour and mix well
- Incubate at ~30-35 degrees for 24 hours
- After 24 hours, consider moving the tempeh to a slightly cooler place - it should now be producing its own heat
- After 36 hours, the tempeh should be ready
- Put the tempeh in the fridge or freezer
Pictures
Ingredients
Packaged
End result
Cross-section
Notes
This was reverse-engineered from a ready-made product I bought from Bärta. I have no idea if it will work.
After 24 hours no visible activity. Some smell though.
After 28 hours I could clearly see mycelium forming, and the tempeh was holding together enough for me to flip it over.
After 32 hours things are looking better, but I was unsure if it would be ready by 36 hours. Going longer than that is always a bit risky.
I gave up after ~42 hours, when I could see very little activity. At this point the tempeh was holding together reasonably, but cutting into it it was clear that the mycelium had had problems penetrating the peas. Presumably, this was due to them still being too hard.
Next time, I will try boiling them for a while after sprouting, to soften them up.
I have eaten these and the taste is quite all right. It tastes more like fired pea sprouts with some undertones of tempeh. I won’t throw anything away, because it’s definitely perfectly OK to eat, but I wouldn’t call it good.