Hello friends and not-yet-friends,
Today I'm going to show you how to make your own silken tofu, also known as smooth tofu,
tofu pudding, or doufu fa, using ordinary lemon juice or calcium sulfate; your choice.
I'll also show you what happens when you use store-bought milks and how to make the ideal
soy milk from dried soy beans.
It's all pretty simple; but it takes a little elbow grease and there's some soaking and
cooling involved so to make things easier, start the process a day ahead.
First let's make some fresh soy milk...
...starting with good quality soy beans which you can find at health food stores, Asian
markets, or even some regular grocery stores that have good selection of beans.
They should look fairly uniform, without spots or discoloration.
If they are lighter color or a little darker, that is fine; those are natural variations.
But they should be smooth skinned, not wrinkled.
And shouldn't have much of a smell.
Older ones or those improperly stored can go rancid.
We don't want those!
Soak one cup of dried soy beans in four or five cups of water.
Or feel free to make a double batch like I'm doing today.
By the way, I'm using regular chlorinated tap water, nothing special.
Then let that soak until the beans have fully hydrated.
This can take as little as 4 hours on a really warm day at room temperature or up to 12 hours
in the fridge.
When fully hydrated, they will be about 3 times as large.
Just look at those cute little beans!
Did you know?
Soy is one of the Five Sacred Grains from Ancient China, along with rice and wheat.
It's been cultivated for over five thousand years!
Moving on, dump the soaking water, and blend the beans with new fresh water; using five
cups of water for every cup of dried beans we started out with.
And again, just I'm using regular ol' tap water.
This high powered blender has enough space for a single batch and will take about half
a minute on the highest setting to get the soy beans as broken down as we'd like.
When I use my regular powered conventional blender, it needs to be done in half batches
and takes about a minute to a minute and a half on the highest setting each time.
Either way, you want the soy bean bits to be about this size so we can get as much protein
and fat out of the beans and into the milk as possible.
But if they are too processed, it will be very difficult to strain.
It's a bit of a balancing act.
This is where the elbow grease comes in.
Elbow grease and clean, clean hands.
I'm using a jelly bag for this.
A nut milk bag will work too.
Possibly a wire mesh sieve if the mesh is fine enough.
Possibly a clean muslin cloth.
And possibly a bunch of layers of cheesecloth.
Use what you have!
Be careful that you don't squeeze so hard that you break your bag and get pulp in your
milk.
I've done that before; it's no fun.
Instead, move the pulp around in there so you can squeeze different sections.
The milk should feel creamy as it flows over your hands.
Is it an ancient spa treatment of some kind?
Maybe.
Kinda feels like it.
When you're done, the pulp also known as okara, tofu dregs, or dòuzhā or dou jai should
be fairly dry.
Look at the size of the pieces for evidence that you blended it well enough.
If you didn't go far enough, you can re-blend it with the milk and strain again to make
thicker milk.
Remember, the more protein and fat you're able to squeeze from the beans, the more tofu
you're going to get in the end.
Once you have your strained raw soy milk, transfer to a big pot to cook it.
You should not drink raw soy milk.
Just like you shouldn't eat raw soy beans or other beans raw.
First of all, ew that would taste nasty.
And second, it's simply not digestible that way for humans.
But all we need to do it bring it to a boil.
Then let it simmer for ten minutes.
Then, let this milk cool down.
You can use an ice bath to speed things up.
The way we're making silken tofu today starts with cool or room temperature soy milk.
Silken tofu is delicate and softer than regular tofu.
There is some variation in this category too...
But we're going to keep things simple today and do a basic steaming method that will yield
soft smooth tofu that's great for scrambles, Chinese dishes like Mapo Tofu, or simply eaten
fresh with soy sauce and black vinegar, or sweet with condensed milk or syrup.
I'll be sharing another version pretty soon along with a new and improved regular tofu
making tutorial so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and turn on notifications
so you don't miss anything!
Now, choose your coagulant.
This is what will trigger the soy milk solids to clump together and form our tofu.
There are many kinds you can choose but I'm sticking with two coagulants that are easy
to find.
Calcium sulfate is also known as gypsum.
Yup, that's the stuff they use for drywall.
But don't head to your local hardware store.
Use the food grade kind.
You can find it at wine and beer making supply stores or online.
This is my coagulant of choice because it's super cheap and produces a really smooth tofu.
And lemon juice which we've used before in a previous tofu making tutorial.
I was surprised to find that this bottled stuff is just as good as fresh.
In some ways, it's better because they make the bottled stuff really consistent in acidity.
Whereas some lemons just aren't that sour and aren't acidic enough for making tofu.
If you're using gypsum, pour in a small amount of soy milk and mix it really well to dissolve
the gypsum.
For this one cup serving, I'm using a quarter teaspoon of gysum.
Then pour the rest of the soy milk in.
I'm doing just a cup in each container but feel free to make larger batches.
For this next one, we're using one teaspoon of lemon juice and simply pouring in the soy
milk, mixing just a little.
You'll see the soy milk beginning to curdle.
With lemon juice, this happens more quickly.
But you don't have to wait.
While we're here, let's see what happens when we use store bought milk.
Here I have vanilla soy milk.
I looked for the one with the most protein and fat.
And the least number of ingredients.
When I added it to the lemon juice, it starts to thicken right away just like with homemade
soy milk.
Next, let's try almond milk just for funsies.
Again, I looked for the one with the most protein and fat.
But even this one doesn't have much.
Can you guess what will happen?
As soon as you get your steamer up to a rolling boil, you can lower the temperature to medium
medium high so we still get a hot steady steam but the lid isn't trying to pop off.
Steaming for 10 minutes should set the tofu.
As the soy milk heats up, the coagulants can do their thing.
Afterwards, let it rest for 10 minutes undisturbed.
Then you can serve it or let it cool down more so you can store it in the fridge.
Let's look at one made with homemade soy milk and gypsum.
We can see that it's fully coagulated because the soy whey is clear, a bit yellowish but
not milky.
The texture is soft and smooth but a solid piece.
When you break into it, the pieces separate smoothly.
Up close it has kind of looks like layers of rock; I'm thinking of shale.
But white.
Very much like good quality store-bought silken tofu but the taste is nicer, in my opinion.
The flavour is super mild, no strong beany flavour, though that may have more to do with
the quality of the bean than the cooking method.
I'm not sure.
But anyways, it's super fresh tasting.
Now for one made with homemade soy milk and lemon juice.
It's fully coagulated too but the curds have a different texure altogether.
More chunky but they do hold together.
It's a little bit softer than the one made with gypsum.
The flavour is still really nice.
You can barely taste the lemon; still mild and great for anything you want to do with
it, whether sweet or savory.
The texture is perfect for making a very egg-like tofu scramble which I'll show you at the end
of this video.
But first, let's see th e store-bought results.
The vanilla soy milk mixed with lemon juice has a, uh, shall we say, different look?
I used a bit more lemon juice in this batch to get it as coagulated as it could be.
And, yes, this looks mostly coagulated.
But the texture is fairly pretty similar to our homemade soy milk version.
The amount of tofu we get isn't as much though.
And the taste?
Pretty lemony which makes this a vanilla flavoured silken tofu a little weird.
OK, a lot weird.
I tried again with gypsum and the result was actually worse.
But if you want to experiment, it's pretty interesting just to observe the process so
I say go for it!
Next the almond milk test.
You can see soft floaty curds separate from the yellowish whey.
But it's too liquidy.
Nothing holds together.
Utter fail.
But that's what we thought would happen, isn't it?
And there you go.
Now you know how to make silken tofu at home.
With the batch made from homemade soy milk and lemon juice, I'm going to make a simple
scramble.
First, heat the tofu up to force the water out.
This will make the curds firmer.
High heat will do this faster but you do want to watch and lower the heat if you find the
tofu sticking and drying out too much.
It will seem like the water leaking out of the tofu is endless at first.
But then it will get drier and drier.
Before we run out of moisture, lower the heat to medium and add garlic puree and turmeric.
This puree has ginger and chili too but that's optional.
And turmeric is for color so that's really up to you too.
Then add more flavour.
I'm using white pepper, black salt which gives food an eggy flavour, and soy sauce.
To be honest, I accidentally poured a bit too much soy sauce.
After a couple minutes of stirring over medium heat, it's done!
With a little toast, it's a nice little breakfast.
I hope you got something out of this tutorial on how to make silken tofu.
If you did, please give this video a thumbs up.
Please let me know if you make this recipe and let me know how it went or if you have
any questions, leave them in the comments below.
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I make vegan-friendly recipes, both healthy and indulgent types, plus What I Ate Wednesday
videos to inspire you to get creative in the kitchen each week.
Thank you so very much for watching, my friends.
Bye for now.