Tempeh Fingers with Hemp Seed Tartare

Tempeh

Calling all Budding Vegan Chefs

I am curious to know who of you reading this blog post would like to pursue being a chef as either a hobby or profession. My story was that at the age of sixteen I wanted to be a chef but as I was vegetarian no one would take me on as an apprentice. I let go of that dream and pursued my other dreams, working with people with disabilities and being a primary school teacher. It was only at the age of thirty eight that I decided to follow my original passion and teach myself how to be a top notch vegetarian and then vegan chef. It has been an incredible twelve years.

I am curious to know how many of you out there would like to learn more about being a vegan chef? The training I offer to become a vegan chef is not just for those wanting to pursue cheffing as a career. It is for those who also want to get super skilled for their own home use. It is possible to commit to one or two modules of the training. You don’t need to do the full training. Some people come and do a module a year. Modules two to five can be done in any order.

We still have plenty of places left in all modules 2 to 5 and then in the third phase of the training we have 4 places left. Please check out our Vegan Chef Training page for more information.

One of the multitudinous things you learn during the training is being able to create your own recipe by taking inspiration from others and crafting the recipe to suit the ingredients you have in your fridge or pantry. This week’s recipe certainly shows how easy it is to do this.

Cook Book Review

This is week one in the scheduled blog posts which means I am here to do a cook book review. I am over the moon happy to be presenting Anthea Amore’s book Hungry. Anthea (from Organic Passion) is a marvel in the kitchen. What always astounds me about Anthea is how she can describe every ingredient that is in a meal just from eating one mouthful.

We are so fortunate to have Anthea as one of the many guest chefs on the course. Anthea comes in for module four and facilitates a fun filled day of Italian Vegan Cuisine. Her latest book Hungry is packed with recipes and to be honest up until today I hadn’t tried one even though I’ve had the book for a few years now.

Last week we were invited to a friends place and she made us delicious gluten free sprouted grain hot crossed buns for morning tea and lo and behold the recipe was from Anthea’s book. Oh girl they were delicious.

So on return home I grabbed Hungry off my bookshelf and decided the next recipe I would try would be from the book. So for lunch the next day I played around with Anthea’s ‘Not Fish Finger’ recipe and came up with this version I share with you now. Instead of deep frying I shallow fried and made a hemp seed tartare instead of cashew nuts and wrapped nori around the tempeh fingers. Looking nothing like the photo in Hungry I was still elated with the result.

I highly recommend Anthea’s book – it’s a beauty and so full of life. And I also recommend booking into a Vegan Foundation Cooking Course in order to be able to come back and attend module four and learn from Anthea Amore herself.

Tempeh Fingers with Hemp Seed Tartare

Enough for a family or canapés at a finger food party (ha ha I think that’s funny – Tempeh fingers at a finger food party- sorry I do find little things funny).

Ingredients

2 blocks of unpasteurised tempeh cut into 1 cm fingers

5 sheets of nori cut into 1 cm wide strips

2 cups rice crumbs mixed with ¾ tsp salt

¼ to ½ cup sunflower oil or avocado oil

For the batter

¼ cup besan flour

¼ cup rice flour

¾ cup water

¾ tsp salt

For the Tartare

½ cup hemp seeds

¼ cup tahini

¼ cup water

¼ cup brine from the gherkins

2 gherkins diced very small

1 tbsp capers finely chopped

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Method

For the Tartare place everything except the capers and gherkins in a blender and blend until smooth. Fold in the capers and gherkins.
For the batter, mix all ingredients together and put in the fridge while you wrap the nori strips around the tempeh fingers.
Wrap the nori strips around the tempeh fingers by starting up one end and finishing at the other.
Place the rice crumbs and salt in a bowl. With one hand dip the tempeh fingers in the batter and then drop the tempeh finger into the rice crumbs. With the other hand cover the tempeh finger with bread crumbs then place on a board.
Heat up ¼ cup oil in a wok and fry the tempeh fingers on each side until crisp and brown.
Serve with the Tartare or if eating for lunch place the Tartare and tempeh fingers in a wrap with lots of salad veg.