Making tofu from scratch...

[Mylovelyhorse]

We've just had a bash at making our own tofu - and really enjoyed doing it. Has anyone else had a go at it?

We used 300g of soya beans, and we've ended up with 370g firm tofu, plus about the same quantity of 'okara' - which is the insoluble residue left behind when you grind up the soya beans and make it into soya milk.

I'd never heard of okara before, so Googled it. And found loads and loads of recipes for it. We've had okara falafels for dinner tonight, and they were wonderful. We've still got half of the okara left - apparently it needs to be used by tomorrow (or frozen if we can't manage that). And the tofu we made has gone into the freezer, ready to be transformed into a thai green curry this weekend.

I'm a convert. Trouble is, we virtually burnt out the motor on our food processor grinding up the soya beans!

So. Does anyone else make tofu?

MLH x

[Kezz]

Did you do it by hand or use some kind of machine?

I was looking into making my own soya milk last year but I didn't get much further than that. Did you (or could you have) get soya milk from this process too?

[Green Aura]

I've got a soyam ilk maker and it's brilliant. You get a dish so no weighing - half fill with beans and top up with hot water. Soak for an hour then bung in the machine (usually enough beans for two batches - which, coincidentally, is what you need to make the tofu).

Unfortunately I'm not keen on soya, although I've recently discovered a liking for tofu in hot and sour soup. So we'll use it more often now.

We got it because my daughter's vegan. We thought it would be good for her as a student - beans are so much cheaper and you can use every part as you said. But she never used it so we brought it up here with us. It's handy because I can't buy tofu locally, and as it changes texture when you freeze it, it doesn't work with a lot of dishes. And fresh tofu tastes so much better than the stuff from supermarkets anyway. Much more creamy and not so soy-ish. So that's even better for me

You can also use it for making nut milks but I've not tried it.

What did you use to coagulate the soya milk? I use the nilgiri(?sp) but I think you can use epsom salts too. And I've read that different coagulants give a different end result - texture etc.

[Mylovelyhorse]

I didn't use a soya milk machine to do it, no. Basically I soaked the beans, ground them to a rough puree with lots of water (using a food processor for this bit). I wasn't happy with some of the lumpier bits, so I blitzed it with a little hand blender thingy too. Then you add more water, boil it and strain it. and boil it again. Et voila, soya milk.

After that I added nigari as a coagulant (bought from an online supplier as nowhere locally had any. We've got a kilo of it, and we used 1.5 tsps for this recipe. We have a lifetime supply of nigiri I think!). Separated out the 'curds and whey', drained and pressed the curds. Bingo. Tofu.

I prefer frozen tofu to fresh, as I like the texture when it's been frozen. So we haven't tasted this batch yet, but will do on Saturday...