Homemade tofu without all that fancy Japanese stuff

Yes, I made tofu in Perú.

It just so happened that one of the local shops was selling soy beans, so I picked some of those suckers up.

Of course, I had no fancy Japanese tofu molds or imported nigari (coagulant) or cheesecloth. So all of the following should be what you can do from your own home-sweet-home without ordering anything from the internet.

My recipe uses a T-shirt (for straining), a plastic colander & tupperware container with holes poked in it (molds), and plain-old white vinegar. Suuuuper cheap. The whole process takes about 2 hours, so if I was in the US I probably wouldn't go through the trouble. But seeing as there is no tofu here in the farmlands of Perú, it'll be worth it once & a while I think. Pardon the pictures, they were taken at night with an old camera :/



First we'll make soymilk, mmm. Warning: this does not taste like Silk unless you water it down and add lots of vanilla and sugar.

STEP 1:

Wash and pick through 500g. soy beans (a little over a pound), and leave them to soak 8 hours or overnight (change the water a couple times).

STEP 2:

Put 16 cups of water on to boil. I used a huge industrial pot for this, you may need to use 2 different pots.

STEP 3:



Discard the soaking liquid from the beans, and put a couple of cupfuls at a time in a blender, filling to a little above the beans with water (just so that the blender can work well). Blend a few minutes until nearly smooth. It turns into a really thick goo. Do this until all your beans are blended. Pour this mixture into the boiling water and turn it to medium heat. Stir this mixture constantly for about 20 minutes. The foam is normal, so if it starts to boil over remove briefly from the heat or sprinkle a little cold water over the top. But stirring constantly should help.



STEP 4:


Turn off the heat and strain. I used an old T-shirt to strain the soymilk into a large bowl. Make sure all the liquid is strained, then put the solids (okari) into a separate bowl. I like to eat this with ginger and soy sauce, it's super good for you.





STEP 5:



Put the soymilk back into your pot, and turn it onto medium-low heat. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of white vinegar over the top, stir, and wait a few minutes. Repeat this process until your curds have separated from the yellowish & watery whey. I wasn't measuring the vinegar, but I'm going to guesstimate that I used about a quarter of a cup of vinegar. Let the curds & whey sit for 15-20 minutes.

STEP 6:

Line the colander with your T-shirt, put it in a container to catch the whey, then pour the contents of your pot into the colander. Squeeze the excess whey from the shirt and twist the shirt so that most of the excess liquid comes off from the curds. Discard the liquid.

STEP 7:



Put your colander with curds inside of another bowl (one that fits so the bottoms don't touch--you want the water to drip away from the tofu). On top of your curds, put a fitting lid or plate, then put a bowl filled with the okari or water on top of THAT as a weight. Let sit for 10-30 minutes, depending on how soft you want your tofu.

STEP 8:

EAT YOUR DELICIOUS TOFU! It's lovely just plain with soy sauce on top. It stays for a few days, and if you don't eat it immediately put it in water and keep it in the refrigerator.

Stop throwing away your orange peels!!

They're delicious, they do not belong in the garbage!

CANDIED ORANGE PEELS:

-Peel of 4 oranges, washed and cut in thick strips

(for the simple syrup:)
-2 c. sugar (I used brown)
-2 c. water

(for the covering)
-1 c. large-grain or coarse sugar (like that raw Hawaiian sugar)

First, boil the cut peels on the stove for 5-10 min. and strain. This is to get rid of the bitterness. (I like to drink the liquid with honey like tea).

Then, put the sugar and water together in a saucepot and bring to a boil. Turn to a simmer and add the orange peels.


And simmer. Aaaaand simmer. And continue to simmer, uncovered, until the peels become translucent and the syrup becomes thick with big bubbles, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Strain the peels from the sugar syrup (I save the syrup for pancakes and french toast, yum), and throw them all into a tupperware full of the coarse sugar and SHAKE until all the peels are separate and covered with sugar. Spread on plastic or wax paper and let cool, then eat eat eat.



This same recipe works wonderfully with slices of ginger too.

Sweeties :)

Yesterday, I peeked in the fridge and saw that nothing else could fit. There was a bunch of already cooked sweet potato, and thus was the birth of my sweet potato bread.



SWEETIES

Ingredients:
-500 g. fine ground whole wheat flour (a little over 4 c)
-1 tsp. salt
-1 c. warm water
-1.5 tsp. honey
-1 Tbs. yeast
-1 c. mashed sweet potato
-1/4 c. olive oil

Mix the water and honey together until well integrated. Sprinkle and stir in the yeast. Let stand until frothy.

Meanwhile, combine the flour and salt until well integrated. When the yeast mixture is ready, pour into flour mixture, and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix with a spoon into a loose dough and let rest for 10 min.

On a floured surface, knead about 10-15 min, or until smooth and elastic. Roll dough into a ball with a tight skin on top, put into a well oiled bowl, cover with a wet towel, and let rest at room temperature for 1-8 hours (I left mine overnight, it was fine). For a pretty much fail-safe technique, check out this video--> http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/altons-pizza-pizzas-recipe/82409.html

Bake at 375 for 20-25 min, or until the buns are browned on the bottom, and the bottom is hollow-sounding when you tap them.

Delicious served hot on a cold morning with butter and honey :)

For a variation, make a cinnamon butter by mixing 1/4c. butter with 1 Tbs. each brown sugar and cinnamon. Spread it on the bread when it's piping hot, and thank me later.

Gooey fluffy chocolate happiness

One night when I was attempting to make brownies, I turned out this wonderful thing!

FYI--it was not a brownie...

The story goes that I had fresh milled cocoa powder and an 100% chocolate bar and no flour. We wanted brownies. What could we do?

I attempted to use a flourless brownie recipe from the internet, with one problem; there was NO SUGAR OR MILK in my chocolate. Though I love really dark chocolate, I wanted sugar and milk in my brownies thank you very much. Here's the next problem--you don't use milk to make brownies, if you do it's minimal. So long story short, in the end my brownies were (in fact) not brownies.

So here's the recipe for my lovely, fluffy, chocolatey (not brownies) torte :)







CHOCOLATE TORTE

-1 chocolate bar (100% cocoa), broken into pieces
-5.5 Tbs. butter
-1/2 cup good-quality dutch process cocoa powder
-1 cup whole milk
-1.5 c. (or to taste) brown sugar
-1/2 tsp. salt
-4 eggs

Melt the butter over a burner. When it is completely melted and bubbling, turn of the heat and add the chocolate bar, and stir until melted. Add the sugar, cocoa powder, milk, and salt, and stir until fully integrated and very smooth. Check to make sure the mixture is cool, and if so add in all the eggs at once, and stir with a fork until smooth again.

Pour into a very well-oiled bread pan, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the torte puffs up and is no longer liquidy in the center. The center will still be jiggly, but the edges will look baked. This should be about 30 min (though I never know with a Peruvian oven).

Slice crosswise, serve with a cold glass of milk, y disfruta!

Spiny, creepy things...(la caigua chilena, en Inglés y Español)

(Mire por abajo para Español)

Once upon a time in Peru, my host dad came home towing a vine-full of spiny, dirty, green things...

so I cooked them!



The caigua chilena is an anomaly, I couldn't find anything on it online--when you search the internet, it only comes up with "caigua", and it's a different vegetable.

I was using the oven for something else and kind of annoyed that this pokey thing was taking up all my kitchen space, so I chucked them into an empty shelf in the oven

And out came something delicious! The peel and seed came right off, and I was left with something that was a weird mix between an artichoke, Chinese winter melon, and chayote.



The first time I made it I made this crazy spicy orange sauce from basically everything that was in our fridge, cooked chopped caigua chilena in it, and covered the whole thing in cheese--my family loved it.

This time, I cooked it for an hour in the pressure cooker (the thing wasn't only spiny, it was a brick), took off the peel and seed, chopped it, fried it, and put it in a Chinese "mapo" (麻婆) sauce that I learned from my host mom in Japan.

and BAM! Chinese food deliciousness!




"Mapo Caigua"

-3 caiguas, boiled until completely tender, with the skin and seed removed
-1 onion, cut in big chunks
-vegetable oil for frying the caigua

SAUCE:
-1 tsp. tojan chili sauce or Chinese pepper garlic sauce
-1/2 onion, minced
-1 inch. chunk of peeled ginger, minced
-5 cloves garlic, minced
-1 Tbs. sake
-1/3 c. white or rice vinegar
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1/4 tsp pepper
-1/2 c. water mixed with 1/2 Tbs. corn starch
-3 Tbs. soy sauce

METHOD:
Cut the caigua into big chunks, and fry in oil until golden brown. Set on paper towel to drain.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce BUT the water with starch and soy sauce together in a bowl. Set aside.

Put a pot over medium-high heat, and pour 2 Tbs. sesame oil in the pot. When the oil is hot (you can smell it), throw the chopped onion into the oil, and cook until it begins to turn brown (but not so that it starts shrinking). Add the caigua and the prepared sauce, and stir. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat. Clear a spot in the pot, and drop the soy sauce in--it should start boiling immediately. After a few seconds, stir it in. While stirring it so the starch doesn't clump, add the water with starch. Cook over medium-high heat until it thickens, about 5 minutes.

Serve over piping hot rice, and maybe with some fried wonton skins :)



NOTE!
I realize that a caigua chilena will not be sold in your local piggly-wiggly. That said, this recipe would go wonderfully with a chayote, which you should find at any local Latin-food store. Otherwise, just make it the traditional with pan-fried tofu and it is equally delicious. Use your imagination--just about every other vegetable out there would be delicious with this.



ESPAÑOL

Una vez, mi padre anfitrión trajo a la casa una vina llenada de cosas espinadas, sucias, y verdes.

entonces las cociné!

La caigua chilena es anomalía, no pude encontrar nada sobre lo por internet. Cuando buscas, solamente viene páginas de la caigua, una verdura muy diferente.

Yo estaba usando el horno, y le me molestaba solamente sentando en la encimera, pues se eché adentro el horno.

...¡y salió algo rico! La piel y la semilla se separaron fácilmente, y dejo algo parecido a una mezcla extraña de alcachofa, chayote, y melón de invierno (benincasa hispida, un tipo de melón de Asia).

La primera vez que los cociné, hice una salsa picante de ají amarillo y queso. La familia anfitriona le gustó

La segunda vez, los herví en la olla de presión para cerca de una hora, y los guisé como una comida china, "Mapo". Usualmente mapo contiene carne molida y carne de soya, pero la salsa tambien se puede usar con otras cosas.


MAPO CAIGUA

-3 caiguas chilenas, hervidas, con la piel y semilla sacadas
-1 cebolla, picada
-Aceite para freír las caiguas

Para la salsa:
-1 cucharilla chile fresco molido (como rocoto o jalapeño)
-Mitad de una cebolla, picada muy fina
-2 pulgadas de jengibre pelado, picada muy fina
-5 dientes ajo, picados
-1 Tbs. sake (vino de arroz), o otro liquor blanca como pisco
-1/3 taza vinaigre blanco
-1/2 cucharilla sal
-1/4 cucharilla pimienta
-1/2 taza agua, mezclado con 1/2 cucharón fécula de maíz
-3 cucharones de salsa de soya (sillao)

Direcciones:

Corta las caiguas en cubos, y fríen en el aceite hasta están doradas. Ponga en una toalla de papel para que puede escurrir el aceite.

Mezcla todas las ingredientes EXCEPTO el agua con fécula en un plato ondo, y dejarlo a un lado.

Ponga una olla sobre fuego medio, y vierta 2 cucharones de aceite de ajonjolí adentro. Cuando está caliente (y puede olerlo), se echa la cebolla, y cocine hasta pone dorada. Añada la caigua y la salsa preparada, y revuelva para 5 minutos. Añada la salsa de soya, y mezclarlo. Revueva el agua con fécula de nuevo, y agregue a la olla. Cocine sobre fuego medio-fuerte hasta cuando la salsa hace gruesa.

Sirve encima de arroz caliente, y talvez wontons fritos :)


NOTA:
Porque el sabor no es muy fuerte (es poco dulce, y la textura es suave), se puede usar la caigua chilena en vez de otras verduras en cualquier plato. Pienso que sea rica en salsas italianas (como de espagueti), o en platos saltados asiáticos.