Tempeh piccata
Golden, flour-dusted tempeh in a bright, buttery lemon and caper pan sauce over orzo, a restaurant-style dinner that comes together faster than it looks.
- 45 min total
- 35 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 2
- About $3.69 a serving
- 740 calories
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- ¾ cup orzo
- 1 package tempeh
- 1¼ cups vegetable broth, divided
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 2 tbsp capers, drained
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
From your pantry
- 1¼ tsp salt, divided
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
Each serving has about 740 calories, 34 g protein, 71 g carbs and 39 g fat, and costs about $3.69 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No lemons? Limes work.
- No butter? Ghee works.
- No fresh parsley? Cilantro works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Bring a medium pot of water with 1 teaspoon salt for the orzo.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Cut the tempeh in half , then each half through its thickness into 2 thin cutlets, so you have 4.
Lengthwise. Lengthwise means cutting along the long side, from stem to tip, which gives long pieces. Crosswise is the other way, straight across the middle, which gives short, round ones.
How you’ll know: Lengthwise halves of a zucchini look like two little canoes; crosswise pieces look like coins.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Dolly’s tip: Hold the tempeh flat with your palm on top and saw gently. A cracked cutlet cooks just as well.Put the cutlets in a large with ½ cup broth, cover, and over medium heat about 5 minutes, until the broth is soaked up.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Meanwhile, add the orzo to the boiling water and cook 8 to 9 minutes, until . and with 1 teaspoon oil.
Al dente. Al dente is Italian for “to the tooth”: pasta cooked until tender but with a slight firm bite in the center. It holds up in sauce and keeps softening a little after you drain it.
How you’ll know: Bite a piece a minute before the package time: tender, with a slight firm bite in the middle and no crunch.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
High heatTimer: 8 min 30 sec
Mix the flour, pepper and ¼ teaspoon salt on a plate. Press the steamed cutlets into it on both sides and tap off the extra.
Wipe out the skillet and heat the rest of the oil over medium-high heat.
Medium-high heat
Cook the cutlets about 3 minutes a side, until .
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium-high heatTimer: 6 min
Move them to a plate.
to medium, add the garlic and stir 30 seconds, then pour in the rest of the broth and the lemon juice, .
Reduce the heat. It means turning the burner down, usually to medium-low or low, so food cooks gently instead of hard. Electric burners cool slowly, so lift the pan off for a moment if it’s bubbling hard.
How you’ll know: Within a minute the bubbling calms to a gentle simmer, or the sizzle turns quiet.
Scrape up the browned bits. It means loosening the brown bits stuck to the pan with a wooden spoon, usually right after adding liquid. Those bits are concentrated flavor, and they melt into the sauce.
How you’ll know: The bottom of the pan looks clean again, and the liquid turns darker and richer.
Medium heat
2 to 3 minutes, until the sauce has by about half.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Reduce. Reducing means simmering a liquid with the lid off so some of the water steams away. The sauce gets thicker and its flavor gets stronger.
How you’ll know: The level drops in the pan, and the sauce coats the back of a spoon instead of running off.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min 30 sec
Take the pan off the heat and swirl in the capers and butter until the sauce turns glossy. Return the tempeh and spoon the sauce over it.
Dolly’s tip: Off the heat is the trick. Butter added over a flame melts into a greasy puddle instead of a silky sauce.Serve over the orzo with the parsley scattered on top.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
