Homemade soy milk
Soy milk and musli © kvalifood.com
Video Recipe - Soy milk is a little difficult to make, but it’s fun, and it’s good for many things. Some vegetarian argue that you can use it instead of milk. That’s not quite true. But you can use it in many places instead of milk. It is also the first step towards Tofu, which is a usefull ingredient in cooking.
Ingredients
- 500 g (1 lbs) soy beans
- 2 tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- water
Directions
Soak the dried soy beans for 6-12 hours. Preferably in the fridge.
Change the water.
Heat the water and beans in a pan to 82°C-85°C (180°C-185°C). it does not matter if they simmer a little, but it’s not necessary.
Put beans and water into a blender. 1 measure of beans for 2-3 measure of water. Depending on how strong you want it to be. The difference is like whole milk and skimmed milk. I use 1 glass beans to 2 glasses of water. You can always add more water later.
Blend the the beans very finely. At least 2 minutes.
Put all the beans and water portions into one large saucepan.
Let it simmer, uncovered, for ½ hour. be sure to use a large pot as it easily boils over. Just like plain milk. Trust me. You Don’t want it all over your stove…
A lot of skins will form on the mixture as it simmers. The Asians see it as a specialty, and they peel it of and save it for wrapping other food. That is too much trouble for me though :-S I just stir it into the mixture again where it dissolves.
Strain the cooked mixture through a sieve with a few layers of cheesecloth or other cloth over it.
Squeeze it tighly in the end, so you can get the okara as dry as possible. And extract as much soy milk as possible.
Add salt and sugar to the strained soy milk to tast. I prefer 1 tbsp sugar and 1/4 tsp of salt per liter. It can keep for approximately 1 week in the fridge. Or for months in the freezer.
Notes
It may seem strange that the beans must first be heated to 82°C-85°C (180°C-185°C), blended and then boiled. However, it is necessary for the flavor.
There is an enzyme in the beans which develos a bitter bean flavor if the beans are exposed to oxygen. Which happens if they are blended without heating.
Heating up the beans first will destroy the enzymes and the soy milk tastes much better.
It’s not undrinkable with the bitter taste, and some like it, but I very much prefer it without the bitterness.
The soy milk is good for:
- Milk on muesli
- In bread and cakes instead of milk.
- Homemade tofu
- Smoothies
The Okara
The remaining pulp of soy grains is called okara and is great for bread, cakes and homemade muesli. When they are roasted they taste like roasted almonds.
In some dishes you can use the “wet” okara directly from soy production. But it is easier to store if you dry it in the oven at a low temperature. Which, however, takes quite a while.
The Okara is good for:
- Filler in force-meat
- In bread
- Roasted in homemade muesli
- Roasted in casseroles
- Roasted in salads