Homemade Okara and Soy Milk from Soy Beans
- 100 grams Soy beans
- 800 ml Water
- Rinse the soy beans quickly, and soak them in water.
- It depends on how warm it is, but if you soak them for about half a day (10 - 20 hours) and the soy beans swell up to about 3 times their original size, that's plenty.
- As a general rule, aim for the "ambient temperature + soaking time in hours" to total 30.
- But it does depend on the temperature.
- Put the soaked soy beans plus some of the soaking liquid (400 ml) in a blender and blend.
- If you don't have 400 ml of liquid, add water.
- This pulverized mixture is called "namago" (raw soy base).
- Put the namago from Step 2 into a large pot, and simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.
- Spread out a piece of undyed coarsely woven cotton or a large cotton or linen kitchen towel in a bowl (one that's been sewn up into a bag is best suited for this).
- Add the Step 3 soy-water liquid to this, and squeeze it out very very well, being careful not to burn yourself.
- The squeezed out liquid is 'soy milk', and the fibers left in the cloth is 'okara'.
- I got 500 ml of soy milk and 120 g of okara.
- The okara is just like the okara sold at tofu stores.
- From here on are some extra things: It's really easy to make yuba (tofu skin) from the soy milk!
- Put the soy milk in a pan and just heat it up.
- A skin will form on the surface.
- This is yuba!
- To make tofu from the soy milk: Warm up the soy milk to 75C.
- Put some nigari (magnesium chloride) in a bowl, and pour the warmed soy milk into the bowl.
- After a while (don't touch the contents of the bowl in the meantime) the soy will coagulate, and the tofu is done.
- The amount of nigari to use varies, so read the package directions.
- Why does nigari make soy milk coagulate?
- The magnesium chloride in nigari coagulates the protein in the soy milk.
- Calcium sulphate, calcium chloride, glucono delta lactone etc.
- are used as coagulants too, according to a book on food chemistry.
- Can you make tofu using everyday coagulating agents?
- You can add kanten, agar, gelatin and so on to make pseudo-tofu.
- Kanten-set tofu has been popular since the kanten boom started.
- (Translator's note: kanten became popular a few years ago in Japan as a weight-loss aid.)
- However, if you simmer "tofu" that's set in this way it will just melt away, so you can't use it in heated dishes.
soy beans, water
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/167718-homemade-okara-and-soy-milk-from-soy-beans (may not work)