Didn’t it feel like this holiday weekend was extra-long? There was something about January 1st being on a Friday, and feeling like a Saturday, that made Saturday the 2nd feel like an extra gift of time.
I figured– no time like now to make tofu!
This is part of the Japan emphasis for winter cooking (and maybe into summer). I bought the book Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu, and have been so far enjoying making things with miso and sake (which is a primary treatment for vegetables, but also found in dressings/sauces, soup broth, etc).
Making tofu begins with soaking soybeans. The winter soak time is 20 hours (shorter in warmer weather), which meant if I put them in water at 3 p.m. on the 1st, they’d be ready by noon on the 2nd.
After that you blend them and cook them to “almost a boil.” That’s when this happened.
One moment all was well, the next moment the foam was everywhere. It was much like the great toffee disaster earlier in December.
It was still a nice creamy white color, no scalding (I was stirring dutifully), so I just cleaned up and went on with what I had, letting the foam subside while I wiped up the mess.
I might mention that this was the first time “breast milk” crossed my mind. I have not had a baby, so have little experience with breast milk, but lots of experience with various babies and their vomit, and probably “baby vomit” was the correct phrase. Or formula, which I’m sure I’ve over-warmed on stoves in those days before microwaves.
Then I missed what might have been a very important step. Tucked into a long paragraph of instructions is that you’re supposed to then– after the foam subsides– cook the milk another 8-10 minutes. I, uh, missed that.
I already had my colander lined with cheesecloth and pot ready to hang the mixture for draining, so that is where I went next. Once it was nicely draining and making the soy milk, I reread (for like the 20th time) the recipe and discovered my error. I decided to press on (pun intended). (It had been 22 hours at this point, right? If nothing else it would be good practice.)
After you squeeze out all the soy milk you’ve made, you heat the milk very, very slowly again, up to 175 degrees. This takes an hour of mostly unattended time. The simmer burner on my stove did a great job of slow heating. After 50 minutes, though, as it continued to hover around 160 degrees, I got a little impatient and hurried it under a bit more heat.
When it hit 175 I put it in a bowl and added the nigari (culture). I stirred exactly twice very slowly with the wooden spoon and lifted it out. It did form curds, sort of. I waited a little longer than recommended to see if more curds would form, then put it in my form wrapped with muslin (there was extra so I put that in cheese cloth in a colander), topped them with 1 lb weights, and left it to press for a half hour.
It never got beyond yogurt stage, I’m afraid. But that’s OK. I do think I’ll try again. Once more. And, I will say that the soy milk I made was really good, so I might end up just making that.
