TEMPEH GRINDER
George Formaro, Chef/Partner
Gateway Market & Café
Des Moines, Iowa
Yield: 4 servings
2 T. oil
2 packages tempeh, broken into
small pieces
2 T. chopped onion
1 t. chopped garlic
2 T. paprika
1 t. ground fennel
2 t. soy sauce
1 t. cracked pepper
1 t. crushed red pepper
1 t. basil
Salt, to taste
2 cups tomato sauce
2 T. Parmesan cheese
4 hoagie buns, split
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (or
vegan mozzarella)
Pickled hot peppers, for garnish
United Soybean Board
These tofu skewers are served with soy nut satay dipping sauce.
Method: Heat oil in sauté pan. Add
tempeh; brown. Add onion and garlic;
stir. Cook 1 minute. Add paprika, fennel,
soy sauce, pepper, red pepper, basil
and salt; stir to blend. Add tomato
sauce; simmer about 20 minutes. Add
Parmesan cheese; stir to blend. Divide
mixture equally among hoagie buns. Top
with mozzarella cheese. Garnish with
pickled hot peppers. Toast in toaster
oven to melt cheese. Serve immediately.
As oatmeal is also riding a huge wave of
popularity, Koetke suggests using vanilla
soy milk in place of water when cooking
oatmeal. “It’s a double whammy from a
health standpoint,” he says. It also gives
the oatmeal a rich, velvety texture with no
need of other sweeteners.
SECRET SOY USES
It’s possible to make your own soy sauce,
something Nicolaus Balla, executive
chef of Bar Tartine, San Francisco, has
much experience with from a Japanese
restaurant where he used to work. The
soy sauce is made from ground soybeans
pressed into a mold to make “cakes,” then
dried in a dehydrator. Finally, the cakes
are soaked in a brine solution for several
months as an aging process that turns it
into soy sauce. It stays somewhat solid
and must be strained in the end. It turns
black as it oxidizes. Balla uses the soy
sauce in braises and in vinaigrettes. “It’s a
fun project, but labor-intensive,” he says.
“It’s almost like charcuterie. You need
time and energy if you want to add it into
your program.”
Hasson has found soy curls produced in
Oregon, which she uses in some of her
rice bowls. Using whole soybeans, the
producer steams and purées them and
extrudes them from a machine into long
strips that are then dried. They come in
12 lb. bulk bags and look like chicken
strips. “The great thing is that it only
takes 10 minutes to rehydrate them in a
marinade,” Hasson says. By the time they
are rehydrated, the flavor is there. She
squeezes out all the extra moisture and
cooks it on the griddle. It can go in any
dish that would typically use meat.
Koetke views soy milk as one of the
greatest success stories in the soy world.
Soy milk in Asia is different from that in the
U.S. “When it came to the U.S., people got
smart. Americans don’t like the beany flavor.
So it was back to the drawing board with
researchers determining what gives it the
beany flavor. They worked on the enzymes
and how it is processed. Then they added
sweetness and other flavors, and it was a
huge hit. Soy milk sales have skyrocketed.”
As you work with soy, do something
interesting, Balla says. “Instead of throwing it
in a stir-fry, make something delicious with it.”
Jody Shee, an Olathe, Kan.-based freelance
writer and editor, previously was editor of a
foodservice magazine. She has 20 years of
food-writing experience and writes the blog
www.sheefood.com.
