Okrararara Bread

So. When you make soy milk, you are left with ground up soy beans, otherwise known as okara. Rather than put this to waste, I googled about the internet and found that it can be used for a number of things, one of caught my interest; bread. People who have far more time than I, have listed recipes where they have pounded their work surfaces with hand cared and crafted dough.

So I did this.

1. Find list of ingredients
2. Adapt it to my own successful bread machine recipe
3. Make loaf in the bread womb (otherwise know to you as a bread machine)

The general consensus was to exchange a cup of flour for a cup of okara. Not forgetting to decrease the amount of liquid that you use. No don't forget that.

In fact, when it came to press the start button, I panicked. Not only did I forget that I shoud DECREASE the amount of water, infact I did the total opposite. I was worried that all that okara just might decide to suck up all of the water that I had put in the pan, so I may just have put in two more tablespoons of water "just to be on the safe side"

WHOOPS!

As Totty takes a look into the bread machine window close to the end of baking
Me - "how is that bread looking?"
Totty - "Ermm, you might want to take a look"
Me - "Oh ok"

Not only had the top sunk, but it had really sunk. You know how a brick has an indentation on the top? Well my loaf of protein rich okara bread had that. A big whopping indent on the top, big enough for a medium sized kitten to sleep in.

Even worse, the kitten size indent wasn't quite cooked! So I had to turn on my house womb(oven to the rest of the world) and let the loaf finish off.

Apart from the indent, the loaf didn't look too bad, yes I did forget about it while in the oven. Unlike other bread, it did brown very quickly. Perhaps a tad too brown.

Now this morning, when Totty had left, I sliced myself a couple of slabs to see if the verdict was as bad as the diagnosis.

Remember when I should have reduced the amount of water? Remember that? Well I really should have, this loaf is just too moist. The flavour isn't fantastic, it could use something in the mix. The okara is rather bland, so I should have expected this.

Overall, this is a "not bad" failure. I would really prefer not call this a loaf. Rather a ploaf, because this ploaf is an insult to a good looking loaf, with it's high crusty crust, and it's dense flavoursome innards.

Soy Milk

Not that I was a huge milk drinker, but to ensure that as a proper vegetarian, I feel that I do need to replace milk and dairy in my diet so that I don't feel deprived.

Now I know that Vegans do not live a life feeling deprived of anything, but I still remember when I decided to stop eating meat my Mother and older relatives telling me that I would lac this and that, and that I would wither and waste away. Well neither has happened, I have most certainly not wasted away, in fact the opposite. I have found quite enough non-meat foods to sustain an overweight body. Not that this is at all healthy, especially considering the amount of rubbish that I have shoveled into my mouth over the years. It does prove a point though, vegetarianism isn't unhealthy.

Anyway, now that I know the bad news about milk with respect to cruelty and to health, I made some soy milk.

Yield about 1.3L of very concentrated soy milk.

Ingredients
Soy Beans
Milk
Biggest pan that you have in the house (think about getting a bigger one)

So, after lots of looking on the Internet at various sites, everyone who makes soy milk has their method and their preference. This is what I did. I don't know if it is right or wrong, but it's my method.

I would like to say that I soaked the beans overnight, but it was more like 24 hours by the time that I got to attend them. They came from the Asian market behind the Georges Street arcade. Initially I wanted to get a huge bag, but there wasn't one to be had, so I made do with a few smaller 500g bags. I soaked one 500g bag full.

I measured out 4 cups of soaked beans, and 8 cups of fresh water, I made sure to get rid of the soaking water. Using my stick blender, I ground up the beans. Now I was expecting for this to be too much for my little blender, but it managed perfectly. Some people have fantastic small appliances in their kitchens, I didn't realise that I was one of them until this little tool over performed! I kept an eye on the time, and I spent just over two mintues grinding.

When I was finished grinding, I had a pale yellow liquid with a frothy layer of unxious looking foam.

Then came the messy part! There is an enzyme in soy beans that has to be destroyed to avoid a bitter taste, and may sources advise boiling and stirring until the "dangerous foaming" stops. Now I wouldn't say that the foaming was particularly dangerous, it was messy. I looked away to watch Totty playing x-box and in those few seconds foam carrying ground up soy beans covered the outside of my pan, and a fair percentage of my stove top. MEH!

Overall, I stirred and boiled for about 20 minutes. You will know when the "dangerous foam" stage is passed because the mixture will bubble up like normal milk but won't cover your kitchen.

Then I lined my colander with a double layer of cheesecloth and strained the "milk" from the okara (left over ground beans).

The overall taste wasn't bad, it's not something that I would gulp down, but it's a nice enough taste. I did add a little Splenda, maple syrup would have been better, but there wasn't any in my house, so I couldn't use that.

So an overall thumbs up!

Edit: This did make a very concentrated soy milk. To drink it like milk it did need to be watered down one part soy milk, three parts water. Because I didn't flavour or sweeten the milk, I did add a tinsy bit of Splenda. What I did find very nice was to add a little eccinacia syrup instead of the Splenda. I do have a taste for things like this, and as it's cold season, it can't hurt. Also, do be aware that home made soy milk does not keep long, so drink up or use up!