Soy Busy

I realised that posts about my baking and cooking adventures have been hogging my blog lately. For all those concerned about the children's developments, they have been progressing well, just that there hasn't been any newsbreaking events of late.



Some friends have commented that I am "quite free", finding time to bake and even blog! HAHA...on the contrary, I am on my feet the whole day. I try to multi-task, breaking up the baking sequence, in between having breakfast, cooking XX's porridge and bringing him to the potty. When I could have taken a nap or watch some TV, I used the time when XX is asleep to bake or blog. I used to be busy working for others in the office but now, I am busy working for myself and my family. I am driven by the joy of eating my own produce and seeing my family enjoy the food I make. Actually, all these food creations not just fill the stomachs but they also keep my mind active.




So please bear with me a little longer as I write about my experience in making soy milk. There's also Anzac cookies, but that will have to be another time, when I find more time to sit down undisturbed.



I've been toying with the idea of buying an automatic soy milk maker since I drank some homemade soy milk at a Singaporean friend's place. I've considered buying it from Singapore and even China, where my cousin currently resides. But I can't decide, based on reading the Chinese descriptions, which brand and model is best. I also cannot understand how the soy milk-ing process works, both manually and using the maker. I felt really ignorant as I pondered over questions like:

"Grind the beans first then boil or boil the beans then grind?"
"Strain the soy then boil or boil first then strain?"




Thus I decided to do a bit of homework, reading up on how to make homemade soy milk the 'traditional' way.




Several websites and one YouTube video later, I found out that people actually do it either way. I finally choose this process: 1) Soak; 2) Grind; 3) Boil; 4) Strain



1) Soak

My first soy milk-ing experience, the beans were soaked for nearly 36 hours. I was told the beans will swell A LOT so I was expecting them to grow into the size of cashew nuts. But they didn't. Then I realised that they've got a skin which can be removed if I rubbed the bean. So I thought, maybe that's why they couldn't grow, with that "skin-tight jeans" on them. So I actually rubbed every single bean to get that skin off and left them longer overnight. Still, they only about doubled in size. I've since learned not to have unrealistic expectations about their size and not to bother about removing their 'clothes'. Though I kind of enjoy the 'removal process', it's simply not practical when you have like about 500 beans!

The naked beans

.....and their 'jeans' (below)

2) Grind/Blend

The proportion of water to soaked beans is about 3.5 : 1. According to scientists from Cornell University, you should add boiling water to the beans to inactivate the lipoxidase enzyme that goes into action when beans are broken down in the presence of water and air, giving the 'bittery beany' taste. (Click here to read more.) I followed this method but got to be careful as when I turned on the blender, the initial spluttering of hot water out of the blender can be scary.



3) Boil

I decided to boil the un-strained soy milk before straining as I wanted to extract more flavours from the okara (soy residue). The first time, I used only 50g of beans and a big 5 litre pot, because I've heard so much about the beans boiling over suddenly. It was a comical sight as the soy milk only filled about 2cm of the pot. I also didn't cover the pot, as I was so afraid of the over boiling. So it didn't really boil properly and it lost a lot of moisture through evaporation instead. I had to add back a bit of water and reboil the milk cos if you don't boil it properly, the protein is indigestible and it could give you a tummy-ache.



4) Strain
This is the part that is the most time consuming and requires the most effort but also the most fun. The soy is now grounded so fine that any wire sieve will not be able to separate the milk. I know I needed a muslin cloth but I don't have one and don't know where to get one. I scurried upstairs to see if I happened to have any handkerchiefs. Nope. Finally, I settled on a napkin that was given to me during one SIA function (TCS Star Awards).

The joy of seeing that warm white milk ooze out from the cloth is indescribable. I made sure that I extracted every drop of precious liquid after all the effort. My first soy milking attempt, I yielded only 1.5 glass. So the next time, I made sure I made enough to fill up 2 jugs.

The taste of homemade soy milk is different from those sold outside or any soy milk I've tasted before, for that matter. I don't know how to describe it, just plain heavenly!