Data

Fermentation type: rhizopus oligosporus

Edible: yes, but see notes below

Tastiness: good, but I still regard this as a failure

Recipe

• 0.5 kg dry Austrian winter peas (Pisum sativum)
• ~0.5 dl vinegar
• 1 tsp tempeh starter
• (optional) 1-2 tbsp of rice flour

Instructions

1. Soak the peas in water for at least 12 hours (I did 24 hours here).
2. Sprout the peas until they have about a 1 cm long sprout (this took about 48 hours)
3. Boil the peas until they are al dente. This took about 20 minutes, including the time it took to reach boiling.
4. Add vinegar and mix well
5. Get the peas as dry as possible, I put them back in the pot on high heat and let them dry for a while
6. Let the peas cool down to ~35 degrees. This took almost 2 hours in this case.
7. Add the starter and rice flour and mix well
8. Put the peas in containers that have small holes in them. I use ziplock bags that I have made holes in with a toothpick. My bags fit ~300 g each.
9. Incubate at ~30-35 degrees for 24 hours
10. After 24 hours, consider moving the tempeh to a slightly cooler place - it should now be producing its own heat
11. After 36 hours, the tempeh should be ready
12. Put the tempeh in the fridge or freezer

Pictures

Sprouted and boiled

Packaged

Notes

This was based on my previous failed attempt, see here.

This time, I tried boiling the peas after sprouting, to soften them up. This worked well, but this time the skins on the peas proved to be a problem for making the tempeh stick together properly. The tempeh was still good, but it was a bit crumbly rather than the compact blocks it should be.

So, the theory now is that Bärta’s tempeh is actually made from split and deskinned peas. Next time I will try deskinning after boiling, or possibly just throwing them in a food mixer for a short while in order to break them up a bit.

I still think this went a lot better than the previous attempt. The previous attempt tasted a bit like frying raw sprouts, while this one tasted a lot more like I expect tempeh to taste.