The other day I found soybeans in an ecological market, bought them and decided to prepare home-made soy milk. I had seen already that it was not complicated, and in fact it isn’t. The steps to follow are basically 6: soak the soy beans, squeeze them a bit and take away some of the skins, warm-up, blend, boil and strain.
The soybean paste left from the process is called Okara or Biji and it is used a lot in vegetarian cooking as a meat suplemment since it has a lot of protein and fibre.
Okara - pasta de soja
The next step is making my own Tofu. I have to go and buy the nigiri (coagulant) and maybe see if I can get a mould and in the next days I’m going ot make! But for now, home-made soy milk recipe.
Ingredients. For 2 liters of milk.
- 250 gr white soybeans
- 1 sieve, cheesecloth or a kitchen white cloth, a bowl
- 1/2 tsp salt and 2 Tb brown sugar
Preparation. Click on the pictures to enlarge, pictures are necessary to understand the whole process!
1. Soak the dried soybeans overnight. The small hard round balls will expand into soft bean shaped ovals.
To avoid making any cellular harm to the soy beans, it is actually better to soak them for 1 hour at 65ºC. It’s much more commitment since it requires to control the temperatura. Next time I’m going to do it that way and will let you know.
The reason why we still want to prevent making any cellular harm is because once the cells from the beans are exposed, there are enzymes that break up the fats in the soy, generating bitter aromas such as grass and rancid (a “beany” aroma) that we don’t want the milk to have.
2. The next step is to rub the soybeans with hands to remove the outer covering.The covering interferes with the extraction process.
3. Before blending, it is necessary to heat the soybeans in order to eliminate the action of the enzymes I was telling you about. We will prevent the formation of bitter taste. One can either boil them or place them on the microwave oven for 2 minutes. Once we higher the temperature, two other components of the soybean that interfere with digestion will also be eliminated.
4. Place the soybeans in a blender vase and cover with water. Blend well.
5. Add the milk and paste to a pot with 2 liters of water. Boil and keep in a low simmer for about 20-25 minutes. Try to use a large pot, since a lot of foamy fiber/bubbles will come and it rises a lot. Spoon off the foam as it comes.
6. Once the foamy bubbles stop forming, you will start seeing soybean paste in small aggregates. This is when it’s ready to strain.
7. Start straining the milk. Squeeze strong and with help of a wooden spoon press so that all the milk comes out. Curious fact: In China, usually this procedure is done before the simmring. This methodology is as they do it in Japan.
8. The remaining soybean paste is called okara, it can be dried in the oven or freezed and used for future recipes.
9. Place the milk in a jar and add a bit of salt and sugar/honey/syrup and it’s ready to drink!! You can also add some vanilla. It lasts for about a week in the fridge.
I already made myself a strawberry smoothie for breakfast, delicious!! I hope you feel encouraged to do it, it is a lot of fun and one of the best rewards it that it has no preservants or anything, it’s fresh home-made milk :)
