Will this recipe lose me subscribers?
Precedent says probably.
"I Dream of Dinner" is the most-used cookbook in our house, and many of your recipes are in our daily rotation. We love many recipe developers and authors, but yours are the most *useful*, by far (and delicious). " — Joe, paid subscriber
When I go home to California for three weeks, I end up with salads made of raw kale, raw sweet potato, tempeh, and avocado. But don’t unsubscribe yet. I know you want to because every time I post a tempeh recipe, so many say see-ya to this newsletter.
Tempeh has so much going for it, I’m going to keep on trying to convince the doubters. In some instances where tofu is used, tempeh might actually do a better job. Besides both being made of soybeans, they are so different from one another!
Tempeh has a hefty, rubbly texture not unlike ground meat.
It is savory because it’s fermented.
It isn’t soaking wet like a tofu sponge, which means it can crisp wonderfully and soak up heady seasonings like sambal or black pepper and soy sauce.
Lukas Volger put it nicely: Thinking of tempeh less related to tofu and more akin to mushrooms might help express its charm.
Here, tempeh glazed with soy sauce, scallions, and honey is spooned onto a juicy-sweet-spicy salad that is kind of like you went to the health food place for lunch and ordered a tempeh sandwich and a gingery juice and ate/drank them at the same time. Maybe, if you’re lucky, the health food store has a silly name like Luscious Lorraine’s (this is where I ate this lunch).
Anyways, for the salad part, you grate raw sweet potato (like Martha does) and raw ginger, toss them with kale, soy sauce, lemon, sesame seeds, and chunks of avocado and squeeze squeeze squeeze. The lemon and avocado soften the kale, and the grated sweet potato and ginger get super juicy. Then the glazy, soy saucy tempeh goes on top. Tempeh! California! I love it here and hope you will, too.
