Natto! And tempeh of disappointment.

Yes! It is I. Back again with a disappointingly picture-light post. I have stolen a couple of pics from other internet people though. Hopefully they won’t mind. I bought some starter cultures from the lovely people at Gem. I recommend them highly. Along with a similarly excited housemate, I embarked upon a quest to make tempeh in our highly DIY kitchen. I wasn’t at all sure it would be possible. I borrowed a fridge thermometer from work to test our electric oven’s temperature capabilities. We discovered that YES! It was capable of maintaining 50 degrees Celcius! Well, that blew my doubts out of the water.

To make the tempeh, we basically just followed the instructions that came with the culture. You can find those instructions elsewhere on the web too. It was less of a pain in the ass than I had predicted it would be, what with having to hull each bean and all that. They came off easier than I thought.

On to the disappointment part. The tempeh did indeed grow mould, and that was very exciting. But it took about twice as long as I had thought it would, almost 48 hours until I just turned the oven off,  if I remember correctly. Even then it wasn’t entirely sliceable, like commercially made tempeh, which is really firm and doesn’t crumble. Ours…crumbled. Fried it…not so amazing taste-wise either. I mean…sigh…nothing wrong with it. Just blander than any tempeh I had ever had before. And even more disappointing was that it developed quite a lot of black spots quite quickly in the fridge, and I didn’t get through the whole lot of it before it went seriously slimy and gross. If anyone has any sage advice I’d love to hear it! I have considered that potentially the thermometer lied to me and that the temperature wasn’t high enough? Maybs?

 

Speaking of slimy foods! NATTOOOOOOOOOOH! Dun dun duuuuuunnnnn…..

No wait, that’s catto. I’m just kiddin’ y’all, I just wanted to throw this picture in cos I love it. I love that cat. I don’t even know that cat, it’s just from the internet, but how handsome is he? <3

And I have decided that in the future when I get a cat I will call it CATTOOOOOOOOH!

Back to Natto.

 

That’s right, that shit is disgusting, and tasty at the same time. Look at it! It looks fucked up!!! Really easy to make though, quicker than most ferments, and the gross factor is really a bonus if you ask me. It’s not easy to find natto to purchase here in London unless you’re near a Japanese food shop, which I am not. And when I have had occasion to visit a Japanese shop, I was disappointed to discover that all the natto they had in those cute little pots in the freezer, had bonito in them. Bonito contains fish. Or like…is mainly fish? I don’t know. But it’s not vegan. So I was very pleased to discover how easy and quick it was to make this. By the way, I didn’t personally make the natto, my housie did. I was away at work and he couldn’t wait. Gonna have a crack at it myself soon I reckon.

 

I really want to make miso! Anyone have any spare aspergillus oryzae hanging around that they want to give/sell me/exchange for baked goods? Pleez?

 

This blog has proven useful to me once again, I had forgotten when I made the three litres of apple wine that have been aging in my room, but I can see from my last post that they were started about a year ago. Hm. Ready to drink me think? I suspect they need more time, I tasted it a few weeks ago and it was kinda…meh…and I have found in the past that meh wine turns into delicious wine if you just forget about it for a while. Wait, that’s not really news to anyone is it. I’m going to sleep now!