Homemade Tempe ( Fermented Soy Bean Cakes)

Ingredients:
• 225 g soy beans (white)
• 3 tables rice yeasts (ragi)
• water
• white vinegar
• aluminum foil or banana leaves

Preparations:
• Put soy beans into a large pasta pot. Add sufficient water to cover beans and boil as you would pasta for 20 minutes. Drain.
• Peel soy beans by soaking in tap water and squeezing to remove outer skins. Transfer peeled soy beans to a large ceramic bowl
• Add sufficient water-vinegar solution to cover peeled beans; to make solution, mix 1 part white vinegar with 10 parts water. Leave beans to soak for at least 4 hours
• Meanwhile, cut aluminum foil or banana leaves into 15 cm squares, 12-15 pieces should suffice
• At the end of soaking, bring beans and water-vinegar solution to the boil. Drain
• Cool beans quickly by fanning and constantly stirring with a wooden spoon. From this point on, do not touch beans with hands
• Add rice yeast to beans and mix well with a wooden spoon
• Spoon sufficient mixture onto the centre of each foil square. Fold foil up tightly around beans so that no air can get in
• Keep foil packets for at least 48 hours in temperatures of 24 deg. C or warmer. Do not place packets in a gas oven because fumes from the pilot light will kill the rice yeast.
• To test the fermentation process, open 1 packet. The resulting tempe should look like a web-like cocoon and the beans will not easily separate.
• Once-used foil can be saved for the same purpose in future – rice yeast will continue in minute quantities and the fermentation process will take less time