April 27, 2011

Getting Soy Milk and Okara (Soy Pulp) into My Diet/豆乳とおからを食事に取り入れる

Since I got a soy milk maker in early March, I have enjoyed using soy milk and okara in cooking.
3月初めに豆乳メーカーをもらってから、豆乳とおからを料理に使うことを楽しんでいます。

Here are some examples.
例をご紹介します。

Cottage cheese:
カッテージチーズ:
Heat 400 ml soy milk to around 60C.
Add 40 ml vinegar, and stir.
豆乳を400 ml、60度くらいまで温める。
お酢を40 ml加え、かき混ぜる。

Strain in a few minutes.
数分後、漉します。

I got more than 250 ml "whey".
「ホエー」が250 ml以上とれました。
I took a sip, and found it very sour (naturally!). I put it in the fridge, and disposed of it down the sink a few days later. You might say, "Mottainai (what a waste)." According to one site, it's good when mixed with honey.
ちょっと飲んでみましたが、とても酸っぱかったです(当たり前ですが)。冷蔵庫に入れ、数日後、流しに捨ててしまいました。「もったいない」と言われるかも知れません。或るサイトによると、ハチミツを混ぜると美味しいそうです。

The other day, I made cheesecake for my son's birthday. I replaced 1/4 of yogurt with soy milk. No one noticed that there was soy milk in the cake.
先日、息子の誕生日にチーズケーキを作りました。ヨーグルトの1/4を豆乳に代えましたが、誰もケーキに豆乳があることに気付きませんでした。

I find okara more useful than soy milk. Okara is often regarded as refuse, but I have a feeling that a soy milk maker is actually an okara maker and soy milk is a by-product.
おからのほうが豆乳より有用だと思います。おからは、よく「かす」、「くず」と思われていますが、私としては、豆乳メーカーは実際はおからメーカーで、豆乳こそ副産物だと感じています。

Potato salad with okara has become my family's default potato salad, and it's very tasty.
我が家では、ポテトサラダには、おからを入れるのが普通になりました。とても美味しいです。

A 1:1 mixture of mayonnaise and okara is now one of our favorite dressings.
マヨネーズとおからを1:1で混ぜて作ったドレッシングも大好きです。

17 comments:

  1. Yes, Okara is the best. Making tofu I am glad to have okara too. My favourite dish is stir fried okara (okara of a little bit coarse and dry variety) and stir fried vegetables, seasoned with soy sauce, dashi, mirin, ground roasted sesame, garlic, ginger, chiliflakes and tossed with spaghettini or tagiatelle (italian pasta).

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  2. Thank you for posting this soy cottage cheese recipe. It looks like something I could like! I do my curd cheese with microfiltrated milk in a similar way, but add a few drops of lemon juice or rennet (the raw milk doesn't require any acid to curdle, just a bit of warming and time). The curd cheese is also a bit acid.
    Hiroyuki and Kiki: your descriptions of okara make me want so much to taste it! I doubt if I find it in my Japanese shops, but will ask! One never knows...

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  3. Kiki: Pasta with okara (or should I say, okara with pasta?)? What a great combination!

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  4. Sissi: You should give it a try! It has no strong flavor, and that's why it can go well with anything.

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  5. Hiroyuki: Another dish with pasta: Roast 1/2 cup of okara (dry okara) in a dry skillet lightly golden. Chop a bunch of basil leaves, 1 garlic clove and 3 Anchovis fillets. Put in blender and give it a short round while adding olive oil until you get a smooth paste. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, grated aromatic cheese (I prefere french goat cheese but that is optional). Nice with Spaghetti just add a little bit pasta cooking water and toss with the pasta. No basil leaves no problem, this will work also with rucola or with wild herbs as Allium ursinum - sorry don't know the english name.

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  6. Kiki, I can't believe you mention Allium ursinum (it's called ramsons in Great Britain and bear's garlic or wild garlic in the US, I don't know which name is more "standard English". I make it often in pesto instead of basil and recently I have made crunchy snack pillows filled with this pesto.
    Hiroyuki and Kiki: does this wild plant exist also in Japan?

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  7. Kiki: Thanks for another inspiration. Inspired by your recipe, I think I'll make spaghetti with meat and okara soon. (I can't get many of the ingredients you mentioned, and I have to be content with what I can easily get.)

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  8. Sissi: No, this wild plant (ramsons?) does not exist in Japan.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsons

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  9. Hiroyuki: As substitute for ramson you could easily use some fresh sprigs / leaves of Allium tuberosum: Garlic chives ニラ.
    This kind of pesto is for garlic lovers only..

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  10. Kiki: Thanks for a suggestion.

    None of my family is a garlic lover, so I tend to leave out garlic in a recipe that calls for it.

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  11. Hiroyuki, the mayonnaise+okara dressing is on the top of my list for the next okara! I use mayonnaise a lot and making it lighter and healthier is an excellent idea. Apart from using soy milk in a cheesecake, do you have other ideas how to use the soy milk? I would love to make okara at least twice a week, but simply have no idea what to do with all this soy milk... (I drink a bit in my coffee, but it's 1 litre every two weeks only). I totally agree with you. For me soy milk is now more by-product than okara.

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  12. Sissi: I simply drink it just like cow's milk, so it's gone pretty soon. How about simply using it in place of cow's milk? For example, soy latte and soy shake sound good to me (although I haven't tried them yet).

    The okara + mayo dressing is both tasty and healthy! Maybe a bit of vinegar and/or citrus juice will make it even better.

    Anyway, I'm looking foward to your innovative uses of soy milk and okara!

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  13. Hiroyuki, thank you for the suggestion and the mayonnaise advice. Unfortunately I don't like the very "milky" coffees, shakes etc. (my coffee has only a tiny amount of soy milk in it) and never liked drinking cow's milk (I use it only in cakes and sweets, so probably I should try using there soy milk instead!). All this won't stop me however from making okara!

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  14. Kiki: I see. (Maybe you have already talked about your preferences in your blog...)

    One solution that anyone can think of: Make tofu!!

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  15. Thank you Hiroyuki for one more suggestion, I am thinking of making tofu (I love tofu), but it seems a bit difficult. My Japanese shops don't sell nigari (they make their own tofu, so they want people to buy tofu instead of making their own I guess ;-) but I'll look in the organic food shops! I think I saw it there once.

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  16. Sissi: Do you remember how Kelly makes tofu?
    http://glutenfreeitsalifestyle.blogspot.com/2011/01/homemade-tofu-and-okara.html
    She uses epsom salt in place of nigari.

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  17. Thank you Hiroyuki, I have completely forgotten I had seen it somewhere! I will look for Epsom salt in the pharmacies and also in the organic food shops (they have very strange different things...). If I manage to make my own and palatable tofu it'll be wonderful!

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