Tempeh and Umami – a perfect match?

Monday I posted a picture of my blue-green morning smoothie on Facebook.

Coconut milk, romaine lettuce, hemp seed, banana, and blueberries.

Someone asked if I added a another blue-green – spirulina. To which I confessed that I cannot stand spirulina.  I felt like I had made a major confession and decided I’d drag my Facebook friends into the mix by asking “How about a true confessions game? Tell us one (two, or three, or more!) things that people assume vegans love but you don’t. I’ll start in the comments…”  Over 70 people shared their “vegan dislikes” (you can read them here). Oh what fun to read!

One of my dislikes is tempeh.  I don’t love it and I don’t hate it but I sure don’t like it. So, of course, I pulled some tempeh out of the freezer to thaw because I just can’t stop trying to love the stuff.

It thawed quickly (within a couple of hours).  I steamed it for ten minutes and then diced and marinated it in sesame oil, dulse flakes, garlic, onion and ume plum vinegar for about six hours in the refrigerator.  I decided to use my huge cast iron skillet; I sautéed carrot and onion in veggie broth. I added the tempeh and onions; a few minutes later I tossed in a handful of green beans. Shortly after I tossed in some mushrooms before adding the final veggie, about three cups of kale, with a splash of low-sodium soy sauce. This all cooked up in about 12 minutes.

I served the very veggie and tempeh stir-fry over brown rice.

Not long ago I learned that steaming tempeh before cooking is essential – it helps in the absorption of marinade. I think cooking it on high, but with plenty of liquid (veggie broth) in the cast iron made it even more palatable.  In fact I loved this dish.

Even better, so did my omnivore husband.  

And speaking of him, yesterday on VeganForHer.com I wrote this piece: Living in a “multivore” home: How I use umami to bridge the vegan-omni gap. The umami in this tempeh dish  - mushrooms, ume plum vinegar, soy sauce - was probably the draw for both of us and it was practically braised in the cast iron, which certainly helped. Hmm. Maybe adding lots of umami ingredients to tempeh is the key?

Also yesterday on VeganForHer.com Ginny wrote Cut Cravings with Vegan Umami-Rich Foods (and our friend Jesse O wrote a piece on Dressing Vegan).

Umami. Do you think about it when cooking?

JL Fields writes the blog JL goes Vegan: Food & Fitness with a side of Kale and is writer/editor of Stop Chasing Skinny.