Spicy Tempeh Crumble Bowl
Today’s recipe is a riff one of my favorites from Andrea Nguyen’s most recent book, Vietnamese Food Any Day . It’s a caramelized tempeh crumble, the sort of thing that immediately becomes the best component in your rice bowl. If you’re on the fence about tempeh, this is the place to start. What is Tempeh? Tempeh is a fermented whole food, soy-based, and much loved in traditional Indonesian culture. To make tempeh, soybeans are soaked, partially cooked, combined with a starter, and then spread into a layer to allow fermentation to take place. A lot goes on at this stage, and you can read a more detailed play-by-play about tempeh production here . Soybean tempeh is most common, but other variations are also available. You also might see tempeh combined with other power ingredients like flax, or other grains. Andrea acknowledges that tempeh isn’t a traditional Viet ingredient, but she uses it in banh mi, pho, and crumbles like this one to mimic meat, “when crumbled into small piece...