Tempe, who doesn’t know this one food? You can find tempeh in various forms, from mendoan tempeh, bacon tempeh, and tempeh chips, to tempeh orek, which SoHip can easily find in the windows of your regular water! Tempe is indeed one of the favourite foods of Indonesians; besides the low price, the nutrients contained in Tempe are also many, you know!
But did you know SoHip, you can make your tempeh at home relatively quickly, you know! The ingredients are not too many and easy to find. For those looking for “do it yourself” (DIY) ideas to develop yourself during a pandemic, you can try making your tempeh at home. Besides being able to be an additional side dish, who knows, you might become a tempeh boss or business person! For those who are interested in trying, follow the simple steps below~
First, prepare the essential ingredients to make tempeh; it’s easy, with only two main ingredients!
The essential ingredients for making tempeh are simple; SoHip only needs to prepare soybeans, yeast, or mushrooms specifically for tempeh. For tempeh yeast itself, you can get it for sale at the market, or if you’re lazy, SoHip can also order this tempeh yeast through an online shop on the internet.
There is no exact measure for making this, but usually, for 1 kg of soybeans, SoHip only needs half a teaspoon of tempeh yeast. Apart from soybeans and Tempe yeast, you can prepare enough plastic or banana leaves to use as tempe wrappers later.
Next, clean and soak the soybeans that you have prepared! Don’t forget to knead the soybeans occasionally!
The next step in making tempeh is to clean the soybeans using water so that the dirt sticks to the soybeans, such as the remaining soil, gravel, or twigs. After cleaning, we will soak the soybeans in cold water for 12 to 18 hours.
Make sure the soybeans are entirely submerged, SoHip! It would be best to squeeze the soybeans occasionally while soaking them, which will be the primary ingredient in making tempeh. This is so that the outer skin or epidermis of the soybeans comes off so that later the soybeans will be softer and can be fermented evenly by the tempeh yeast!
After the soybeans have been soaked, the third step in making tempeh is to boil them until they are soft!
Before you sprinkle tempeh yeast, you have to boil the soybeans that you have prepared first. Oh yes, to get rid of the epidermis that has been released, apart from draining it from the soaking water, you can also sieve it.
You can boil these soybeans for 30 to 45 minutes. Soybeans must be cooked/boiled first so that the resulting tempeh is not hard. After draining, let the boiled soybeans air dry before moving on to the following method of making tempeh.
The fourth step is the most important! Put yeast on the boiled soybeans to start fermentation in making your DIY tempeh!
So now is the most critical moment in making tempeh, mixing tempeh yeast with soybeans! Before adding tempeh yeast to the soybeans, SoHip first makes sure that the soybeans are completely dry and cold! The problem is if the soybeans are still hot, the tempeh yeast you give will die instead of developing and becoming tempeh mushrooms.
Pour the tempeh yeast into the soybeans, then stir a little so that the tempeh yeast is spread evenly. After you sprinkle it, wrap the temple in plastic or banana leaves prepared beforehand. If you don’t want to bother, you can replace this wrapper with a container or mould that you have at home.
After being given tempeh yeast, the fifth step is to let the soybeans rest! This is a watershed moment! Will your soybeans turn into tempeh or fail?
So now SoHip is just waiting for the soybeans to turn into tempeh due to the process caused by tempeh yeast. This process will take 24 to 48 hours; please remember you must keep the temperature where you store it within 20-25 degrees Celsius.
If you let the room temperature get too cold, the tempeh yeast will not grow into tempeh mushrooms, whereas if the temperature is too hot, the tempeh mushroom spores will die before they can reproduce. In addition, it is not recommended to pile up tempeh if you make it in large quantities because it will hinder air circulation. After all, this fermentation produces hot air, which must be circulated so that the tempeh mushroom spores don’t die!
The last step is to keep your DIY tempeh durable; you can store it in the refrigerator!
After waiting 48 hours, check the tempeh you made again; if it’s solid and smells typical of tempeh, congratulations! You have successfully followed this DIY tempeh method without fail!
Now, you can process this ready-made tempeh as an ingredient for various dishes. Do you want to make tempeh orek immediately? Tempeh marinated? Or flour-fried tempeh? You can cook everything using this tempeh. If you store this temple for a long time, SoHip can put this temple in the fridge to keep it from going stale.
So, those are SoHip steps on how to make tempeh (hopefully, hehe) at home. You can also use this method of making tempeh to produce homemade tempeh for sale. How easy is the process of making tempeh? The ingredients are simple; you don’t need much effort, so are you prepared to try making tempeh yourself at home?
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