Organic Black Tempeh (Tempe Hitam Organik)

An afternoon stroll through local stalls during a family day, led me to a stall selling free range chicken products; special eggs high in protein with vivid orange color yolk, eggs with two yolks – presumably genetically engineered, tiny light blue colored eggs which the vendor explained was even more special because they’re black silkies eggs. You know, a kind of bantam-lookalike with silky fluffy feathers.

Okay, give me a box of those, please. Next door was another interesting stall selling all things organic. Thinking of getting a few kilos of soybeans for homemade tempeh I’ve been planning to do, I asked for soybeans. The girl pointed to a line of soybeans packed in plastic bags – green soybeans, flat soybeans (?) and black soybeans……  wait a minute, did she say black? I’ve never heard or seen it before. Black beans I’m familiar with, but black soybeans? They’re quite large in size and the girl told me it tasted better than the regular soybeans. I was already picturing an organic black tempeh in my mind. Sounds mouth-watering. I should give this a go. So I grabbed two packs of them, oh and a few packs of those flat soybeans as well.

I can’t wait to make these babies into tempeh. Once I soaked for a few hours, they seemed to double in size. Yikes! Are they supposed to be this big? I’m used to working with normal size soybeans.

CLICK HERE FOR STEP-BY-STEP HOW TO MAKE TEMPEH

The second step, boiling them for 5 – 10 minutes, just to make them easier to dehull. Interesting! there’s no “soybeany smell”. None whatsoever. And the girl was right, it did taste better. Almost buttery like “edamame beans”, unripe soybeans which are usually served in their green pods. The de-hulling process got rid of the black skin, revealing lightish green beans. Wow, I would’ve thought the beans will stay black.

With spring heat is in the air, the tempeh fermented faster,within 24 hour. They’re just perfect, firm, covered evenly with white mycelia and had a subtler smell of  ’tempeh’.

First cooking trial, making tempeh fritters using whisked egg white and tempura batter.
Scores 6…..   Maybe I need to slice thinner and fry them crispier

The next trial, making them into tempe bacem. Basically cooking them in coconut water, garlic, shallots, galanga, bay leaf, coconut sugar, coriander seeds and a bit of tamarind. Definitely scores 9…..   Yay!

Links about benefits of black soybeans:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/lowcarb-black-soybeans.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/021727.html

http://www.soy-beans.org/black-soybeans.html

http://www.livestrong.com/article/305656-calories-in-black-soybeans/

http://www.bastyrcenter.org/content/view/1006/