The Wife and I have always been interested in growing our own vegetables, but it’s been challenging given that we live in a small apartment with no balcony and no direct sunlight.
We signed up for a community garden plot some years back but it didn’t work out, and sporadic attempts at growing kale, basil and rosemary never quite succeeded.
Given that we’re stuck at home these days, The Wife decided to give it another go. But this time, she chose the simplest of vegetables — taugeh.
It’s really as easy as it gets.
Growing Taugeh
First, you start with a handful of green beans.
Then you soak them in a tap water, cover the pot and after a couple of hours they magically start sprouting.
About eight hours later, they really start to grow.
Rinse and drain every eight hours; once before you sleep, once after you wake up and once in the afternoon. After three days, they’re ready to be harvested!
That’s all there is to it.
The ones she grew seemed skinnier than those you find in supermarkets or wet markets, but they were just as crunchy and had a mild “beany” smell and taste, which I quite liked.
Cooking Taugeh
And as we all know, taugeh is a common ingredient in many dishes, and goes well with many home-cooked dishes, like…
Fried XO carrot cake and Laksa yong tau foo…
… and Tom yum fried beehoon and Mapo brinjal rice bowl.
Given this early success at home hydroponics, I’ve started exploring what other vegetables we could grow in our apartment.
It’s probably not going to be as simple and will likely require a basic hydroponics kit with a circulating pump and growth nutrients, but it’s definitely worth taking the next step.
After all, the world as we know it has changed forever, and this could very well be the new normal.
