Using the whole bean. In my previous post today, I chronicled my efforts to make soy milk and tofu for the first time. When you make soy milk, there is a product called 'okara' which is left over -- in my soy maker a little over a cup. The filter cup is in the above photo, as well as the okara left from two batches of soy milk. The okara produced by the home soy milk making process is noticeably wetter than the commercial okara you may find in the Japanese supermarket. To get to the commerical version (one most cited in recipes) you just need to simmer or microwave some of the water off until its a bit more flaky. Okara is low in fat, high in fiber, and also contains protein (17% of the original bean), calcium, iron and riboflavin. Okara is often used in making veggie burgers. In fact the nutritional profile for okara, per 100 grams looks like:

Calories 77
Protein 3.2 g
Carbohydrate 12.5 g
Fiber 4.1
Calcium 80
Iron 1.3
Thiamin 0.02 mg
Riboflavin 0.02 mg
Niacin 0.1 mg

It's a keeper for nutrition! So this morning, I made 'Okara Scrambled Eggs' to use about a cup of it.

Okara Scrambled Eggs

3 eggs, beaten
1 cup okara (about)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 sage turkey links (fully cooked) - any sausage will do
1 cup frozen organic mixed vegetables
2 tablespoons tsuyu*
3 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)

Cut sausage into bite size pieces. Heat oil in non-stick pan, saute sausage and frozen vegetables until nearly cooked, add okara. Stir okara in, continuing to cook, reducing moisture. Make a well in the middle and pour in the tsuyu and mirin, mixing the two together and into the okara mixture. Continue simmering to reduce moisture, stirring often. Slowly add beaten eggs into mixture, incorporating well into the hot okara. When the eggs are done to your liking, spoon onto plates. It tastes nearly like scrambled eggs, with veggies except it has a little more moisture and texture.

*Tsuyu can be found at Japanese grocers, but it is just a concentrated mixture of dashi (fish stock) and soy sauce, so you can make your own blend of these items to add if you don't have tsuyu readily available.

The photo is only a portion of the recipe, I had already plated Dad's & my breakfast before putting the rest out of the frying pan into a bowl.

Someone who makes soy milk a lot put together an Okara Cookbook, which has some interesting recipes.

Now I've demonstrated in two posts, how to use the entire soybean! Of course there are other uses too, but I don't think I'll be making soy sauce at home, and probably not miso either.

History of Tofu

Tofu was first created in China a very long time ago - about 164 BC. There are three competing stories of its origin. First is that Lord Lu An invented it during the Han Dynasty. The second is that a cook tried experimenting with flavoring soy milk with nigari, and found it to produce curds. The third is that the Chinese were trying to apply a technique for milk-curdling learned from the Mongolians or East Indians to soy milk.

Tofu was introduced from China to Japan in the Nara period, coinciding with the introduction of Buddhism, and its tenet of vegetarianism. In the Edo period, a recipe book for tofu "Tofu Hyakuchin" was published, listing 100 recipes for tofu.

Tofu has become quite popular in the west with its health benefits. Did you know that most of the soy beans used to make tofu in Japan are from the U.S.?

And by the way, making your own soy milk and tofu is VERY cheap, although you have to put some labor into it. It is certainly fresher, and may also be healthier than commercial. I had been thinking about doing this for some time, and these articles about the probably bad health consequences of an additive in commercial soy milk gave me the impetus: http://fanaticcook.blogspot.com/2006/12/carrageenan-its-use-doesnt-gel.html and http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA44833. There is some controversy about soy, but observing the healthful and long lives of most Japanese who consume a lot more than we, I don't think it is so harmful, in fact it would seem quite the opposite. I am concerned about modifications made in modern processing being a problem though - so I'm making my own.

So that's the scoop on soy beans and its uses for today!

For the love of soy. I'm entering this post into Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Coffeepot at Coffee and Cornbread. I checked first with Kalyn, the originator of the event to be sure that soybeans would qualify for inclusion in WHB, and to my delight, since my new soymilk maker and tofu maker just arrived she said it was fine. After some research I bought the Soya Power from a place in Tennessee, and since they offered a total tofu making set, I couldn't resist trying that as well. (By the way, I am in no way associated with the manufacturer/dealer I'm just documenting for the curious exactly what I used.)

Warning: This will be an unusually long (and I hope interesting!) post since I am going to take you through the entire process of using one batch of dried GMO-free organic soybeans through several different products using the entire bean. The best all-purpose bean for this is a "Laura" variety, which I bought through Chambers Farms in Iowa. I took their deal which optimized the amount of beans with the postage, which meant I have 14 lbs. of soy beans! You can be sure that I will be posting some more recipes using soy in the future too!

The first thing I did was decide what I wanted to make and what amount of soy beans I would need. Since my business partners in Groundwork were meeting at my place on Saturday, I thought I would at least treat them to some very fresh soy milk. I also was eager to make some tofu, so on Friday night I measured out 2.5 cups of dried soy beans, washed and rinsed in water, then left to soak overnight in filtered water. There is a small measuring and pouring cup for the soy beans included with the Soya Power, but it also happens to equal 1/2 cup. It takes 1/2 cup of soy beans to make a batch (almost a half gallon) of soy milk, and it takes four batches of milk to make one 2 lb. block of fresh tofu.

After a nice night's rest, I got up to very swollen soy beans, and realized that I needed to figure out how much of the swollen soy beans to measure into the machine for one batch. Luckily, the owner's manual mentioned that 2 7/8 cups of soaked soybeans was the equivalent of the 1/2 cup dry. (The above photo is the filter cup after finishing the soy milk making). So first I made the soy milk. I poured filtered water between the lines on the stainless steel bowl, added 1/2 teaspoon sea salt since the owner's manual warned that if you used filtered water without adding salt, there was a tenancy to boil over.

I then fed the soy beans into the feeding window, gently shaking the equipment occasionally to have the beans distribute themselves equally in the filter cup. Once all the beans were in, I placed the machine head with the filter cup attached into the bowl with the water, latched it and pushed start. In 15-20 minutes, the machine started beeping (after quite a bunch of noises since it grinds the beans while its making the milk), and that signaled it being ready.

I made hot chocolate soy milk pouring the milk straight from the bowl of the maker into glass mugs in which I'd placed 1 rounded teaspoon birch sugar, and 2 rounded teaspoons Sharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powder (sweetened). Wow! Is this good, and my guests and father all gave it a thumbs up.

I then embarked on making four more batches of soy milk (the most tedious part of making the tofu), and pouring them into a large pot.

I kept thinking that it MUST be too much soy milk, but I discovered it was not.

After all four batches are in the pot, you simmer it for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then let the temperature of the milk settle in between 170-180F.

At the ready, you have 1 teaspoon of nigari dissolved into 1 cup of warm water. You then slowly pour in about 3/4 of the cup, stirring as you go. Let it rest, the watch the curdles form. Stir a bit more and look for milky areas, and add the last 1/4 cup of nigari, stirring. You can put more nigari (dissolved in water) in if you would like to have firmer tofu.

You line the tofu box with a tofu straining cloth, and ladle in the curds and whey.

Fill it to the top, letting it drain as you go, until you fit all that's in your pot into the box.

Then fold over the cloth.

And put the wooden top on.

Add a 3-5 lb. weight to the top.

Wait 20 minutes.

You can see how much water it lost.

Unfold the cloth.

Take a look at your approximately 2 lb. brick of tofu.

I divided mine in half, one half to eat, the other to store.

I made hiyashi tofu for dinner. Just cut into squares, add a dab of wasabi, dried fish flakes, nori and soy sauce and it's good to go. Yum! It was still warm and more delicious than the typical store bought tofu. It wasn't very hard either. I'm going to stop here, and write another post this afternoon about how I used the OKARA, the left over soy bran from making soy milk. I will also post some of the history of tofu in that post.