Tempeh, Coconut Yoghurt.

I’m on a veritable fermentation bender! Drank most of the ginger beer last night with whiskey and ice, and it was grrreat.

I’ve been making yoghurt for years, it was possibly the first thing I ever fermented myself? Maybe a stab at sourdough was first. It’s a piece of piss, all you do is get a clean jar or plastic container, or if you have some kind of flask or insulated coffee cup, that’s even better. Mix about a tablespoon of live yoghurt with anywhere up to half a litre of milk (I find unsweetened soymilk is the best) and put the jar in a warm place for 6 to 8 hours. I LOVE coming back to the jar and opening it up to find that smoooooth wobbly white yoghurty mass has all come together and done it’s thing, it’s a beautiful moment. *bows head earnestly* Anyway, I think once years ago I tried making it with coconut milk and I decided I didn’t like it. It came out really thin and crap. But maybe the coconut milk I used was thin and crap in the first place, as a lot of it is. So, inspired by the appearance on the market of extremely expensive live coconut yoghurts, I decided to give it another crack. I thought this time, I’ll try to make it come out thicker, I’ll get powdered coconut milk and make a thick cream of it….hmmm…well, it still came out a bit thinner than I wanted, in fact, it fooled me for a moment, because it was doing that thing that coconut milk does in the can, the thick creamy stuff rises to the top, then when you break through that, you’ve got really watery stuff underneath.

In conclusion, it tastes good, I’m currently drinking it as a lassi with mango puree. So I’m gonna try to make an EVEN THICKER coconut cream next time, and if that still turns out funny, I’m going to maybe try mixing coconut powder with soymilk, which I suspect would help a lot to eliminate the wateriness.

Also! Tempeh pictures! I used the same method to make tempeh as last time, but last time I didn’t have a smartypants phone to take half decent pics with, so here’s some…

Still in the bag it was made in. Sexy.

Chopped into manageable blocks, relaxing in the morning sunlight. Also sexy.

Enjoying a steam bath. Sexxxaaaayyy.

After this, I popped the blocks into plastic lunchboxes with salt and water, in which they are currently marinating in my fridge. I’ll freeze half or three quarters of it, and keep at least one of those blocks in the fridge to eat soon.