— Bill Schrier

Last night I went to the grocery store and I purchased a couple of things. Uh, this is Tempe that is made with black beans. It is soy free. Um, I've got to eat it before September the 14th, so I'll be on it. There are some theories that say that you can use mushrooms or seitan or whatever to create a, uh, Tempe like dinner. However, learning to cook a fermented food like this is such a pivotal cornerstone in learning to make whole food, plant-based food. So you can, uh, get this. There is also barley, uh, Tempe. If you are not allergic to gluten, you can use that. So that's the first thing. So there are, uh, alternatives to soy-based Tempe. Now, the other question you have asked was about tofu. And, uh, I'm rather fond of tofu. I've lived in Philadelphia for more than half of my lifetime, and we all know that in the anals of cuisine of Philadelphia, that Benjamin Franklin is responsible for bringing, as he called it, Chinese cheese to America. So this is a soy free tofu that is made with fava beans. And I've had this before and it's very, very good. Uh, I will say that these products can run on the expensive side. The, the fava, uh, excuse me, the black bean Tempe, I think was about $10, and this was also near $10 as well. So what's the alternative? Because I, as an instructor, really want you to do the assignment because it gives you every single ounce of the experience of learning to cook with, with Tempe and, uh, tofu. So here you see I have some orange, uh, or red local beans. I don't know why they're not called orange. 'cause to me they're orange. I took a cup of this and three cups of hot water, and I put it in the food processor. And here I made a lentil tofu. I have made this many times before, it's very economical to make, uh, this is about, uh, two pounds of tofu in this. And I also just want to show you with this trusty knife of mine that it cuts very, it cuts much like tofu. And because I'm not serving this to anyone, I can just show you the texture. Here's its texture, and you can see that it resembles tofu a lot. So if you follow our baked tofu recipe that comes with that wonderful marinade that has, uh, smoked paprika, which you don't like smoked paprika, or you're not going to use, uh, excuse me, liquid smoke, uh, that marinade will change the taste of anything and really give a good flavor. So I have made this in the air fryer and I have made it roasted in the oven per exactly the recipe, and it works beautifully. This cost me about 50 cents to make, uh, it will store well in the refrigerator. I like to just cook it all up at once and then put it in the freezer. So those would be my alternatives to you, bill. Um, I think they would work well. You can also, uh, take some chickpea flour and you can also make a tofu from that. And that is about one and three quarter cup of water to a cup of the flour. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not wild about the taste of chickpea flour. So you're really gonna have to season it up with garlic and some soy and some other things just to sort of take what I consider to be a metallic taste. Making it yourself is very cost effective. It might add a little more labor to your assignment, but you will get it done. And I should also tell you that to make the tofu, the the red lin tofu took all of 10 minutes. It took me three minutes to boil the water, two minutes to cook it, to put it into my Vitamix. And you do wanna look for a, uh, mixer or blender rather that can tolerate, uh, high temperature and won't have your top pop off and, uh, stirring it into the pan. And it's very easy to do. My suggestion is to use a wooden utensil rather than a metal utensil because the mixture will not stick to metal will stick, will not stick to wood. So that's my little advice. I thought I brought a spatula up here. We're working outta my office today because we have some painters downstairs. So I had to sort of move my kitchen up here so you can make it yourself. Uh, you can find some alternatives made from different kinds of beans. And as for the Tempe, there's barley, there's black bean, there are many others. I also wanna say that, um, back in the day when I was a student at Rouxbe, the, um, world Cuisine Unit was that you took yourself on a field trip to a restaurant that whose cuisine you weren't familiar with. And the restaurant that I went to happened to be right next door to H Mart, which is the largest Pan-Asian grocery store in the world. If you live near an H Mart, I would definitely, definitely visit because it's so much fun. If you are going to make some summer rolls and you're looking for brown rice paper, you go to H Mart. Uh, I think I may have mentioned that when I was a student, I went to H Mart because it was really easy to find ingredients. And I also just wanna say that at all of the H Marts, they have walls and walls and walls of miso and tofu made from every kind of, uh, protein source that you can think of. So if you are looking for the challenge of finding, uh, a tofu alternative, or even if you want to find a miso that's made with garbanzo beans, or if you're looking for a low sodium miso, that is definitely the place to go.

https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/easy-homemade-lentil-tofu/