March 9, 2011

Oboro Dofu/おぼろ豆腐

For lunch today, I made my first attempt to make oboro dofu (< tofu) using home-made soy milk. "Oboro" means haze, as in "oboro zuki yo" (a night with a hazy moon).
今日の昼食には、初めて、自家製の豆乳でおぼろ豆腐を作ってみました。「おぼろ」とは、「おぼろ月夜」などの「おぼろ」、つまりhazeという意味です。

Oboro dofu is a poetic name for fluffy bits of curdled soy milk in a pot. If you get the bits of soy milk together, you will get yose dofu (yose < yoseru (to get together)); if you ladle them in a bowl or tub, you will get kumi dofu (kumi < kumu (to ladle)); and if you put them in a sieve, you will get zaru dofu (zaru = sieve). If put in a mold with holes, with cotton cloth in it, to drain, oboro dofu will turn into momen (cotton) dofu.
おぼろ豆腐とは、鍋で固まったふわふわした豆乳を指す、詩的な言葉です。それを寄せれば、寄せ豆腐ができ、お椀や桶に汲めば、汲み豆腐ができ、ざるに入れれば、ざる豆腐ができます。木綿の布を敷いた、穴付きの型に入れて、水を切れば、おぼろ豆腐は木綿豆腐になります。

Two days ago, I bought a bag of 1-kg locally grown soybeans for 1,000 yen.
二日前、地元で採れた1キロの大豆を1袋買いました。

I used 100 g of them.
100 g使いました。

And, I put 1,000 ml of water in the pot. Almost 2 cm lower than the lower limit. To make tofu, you need soy milk with a soybean solid content of at least 8%, preferably 10-12%.
そして、ポットには水を1,000 ml入れました。下限線より2センチ近く下です。豆腐を作るには、大豆固形分が少なくとも8%、できれば10~12%の豆乳が必要です。

Soy milk was done.
豆乳はできました。

This is the nigari (bittern) I used.
使ったにがりです。



Use 1% nigari to make tofu? But, it is by weight or by volume??
I relied on the instruction manual supplied with the soy milk maker: 2.5 g nigari for 1,000 ml soy milk. Dissolve the nigari in 50 ml water.
I reheated the soy milk to 75C. According to several sites, a temperature of 70 to 75C should be fine.
豆腐を作るにはにがりを1%使う?でも重さで?それとも体積で?
豆乳メーカーの取扱説明書に頼りました。豆乳1,000 mlに対してにがり2.5 g。にがりを50 mlの水に溶かす。
豆乳を75Cまで温めました。幾つかのサイトによれば、70~75Cの温度がいいそうです。

I added almost all the nigari solution, and then stirred very gently.
にがり溶液を殆ど全部入れ、とても優しくかき混ぜました。

Two or three minutes passed, but the soy milk showed no signs of being curdled. I was a little upset, and made some more nigari solution, and added it. The soy milk was curdled immediately.
2、3分経ちましたが、豆乳は固まる気配がありませんでした。ちょっと焦って、にがり溶液をもう少し作って、入れました。豆乳はすぐに固まりました。

Results:
結果:


I'm not very happy with the results.
結果には満足していません。

To be continued.
続く。

4 comments:

Kelly said...

When I used that brand of nigari, I ended up using a lot to get the results I wanted. I think it was 15ml worth for firm tofu when I started with 200g soybeans. I don't use a soy milk maker, but here is my blog: http://glutenfreeitsalifestyle.blogspot.com/2011/01/homemade-tofu-and-okara.html

Good luck on your next batch.

Kiki said...

Dear Hiroyuki-san,

I use 1.5 l soy milk and 10 g Nigari (liquid solution as displayed, not the same product). The mixture has to rest at least 15 minutes after adding nigari - still kept warm.
Maybe this will help. For a firmer tofu I use a special wooden tofu mold. http://www.perfektegesundheit.de/shop/images/tofuformagrisan_kl.jpg

Hiroyuki said...

Kelly: Thanks for the link. Making tofu from scratch! That's quite amazing!

I think I used about 5 ml nigari (undiluted type) for 100 g soy beans.

My next batch? I hope I can demonstrate to my children how to make oboro dofu.

I have another plan: Making okara ice cream!

Hiroyuki said...

Kiki: Maybe I should have waited longer before I added additional nigari. When I made oboro dofu from store-bought soy milk, it coagulated much faster, if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the link. I have a plastic mold, supplied with the soy milk maker, but I don't think I'll make firm (I mean, momen) tofu, partly because freshly made store bought tofu is cheap (38 yen per 300 g pack).