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Anyone making DIY tofu/non- soy tofu
Has anyone been experimenting with that? I recently found some fairly easy tutorials on tiktok. I always thought you need like special coagulates to make tofu, but apparently with many beans you can just boil them or add some acid to make them firm. And yeah, you can make tofu from essentially any beans, peas or lentils.
I tried making some green peas tofu, and so far i'm not too happy with the taste. It has a wierd, a bit caustic, aftertaste. I'm not sure if it's the green pea or my recipe...
I will definitely be trying lentils next!
I've tried, about 20ish times - with organic soy beans. Summary of experimentation: there's a reason why factories do this now and not home makers: because it's a huge pain in the butt and your results will vary too much to count on.
I still make a lot of soy milk because that first step is easy and fool proof and delicious already. Getting solid products out of the milk is not worth it in my experience. As much as I enjoy dessert tofu, even though I have ample soy milk at home all the time, I do not make it anymore.
I enjoy soy products so I haven't ever tried with beans, but yeah you want to get the skin off if you want, and really strain it super fine for a smooth finish
Edit: I've tried coagulants including Epsom salts, nigari, gypsum (calcium sulfate) and lemon juice. they each have their strengths but all of them are too much of a pain. If there is a way to automate the pressing processing and I have some kind of meter to test for concentration I might get back into it
A blender works better than a food processor, but yeah, the need to heat soymilk is one of the main reasons why I never make it to drink myself. Oatmilk tastes better and doesn't require the heating or soaking steps.
From my understanding (which is entirely theoretical), the keys to getting reliable results with tofu are proper control of ingredient ratios and proper stirring techniques.
For the ingredient ratios the coagulant is the tricky part because the acidity can vary, especially with lemon juice. Stirring is more important if you're making silken style tofu, and frankly I wonder if it's more of a tradition/craftsperson thing. In theory if you stir it in a way that makes the currents too turbulent it will disturb the formation of curds.
I hope this is helpful but it probably isn't. 😅
It's not so much the adding coagulants step thats the problem, it's the squeezing liquid out of the cooked bean pulp part. How much goes in can be precisely measured to tenth of a gram.
How much liquid you can get out solely depends on your muscle strength and patience, of which I lack at least one🙄
Like I said. Its isn't difficult, it's a pain in the butt to make.
I'm mostly trying to make it myself, because every tofu in the shop is absolutely trash. All factory made tofu i had is tough, dry and absolutely tasteless. I enjoy the process so i have nothing against making it myself.
For reference, there quite a few firmness and texture levels. The best type will depend on the dish you’re making - sometimes you want something tough to stand up to the cooking process, other times you want something delicate that will practically melt in your mouth. Unless the store is only carrying one type, they shouldn’t all be dough and dry.
A Guide to Tofu Types and What to Do With Them [Serious Eats]
It's on my to-do list. I've just been trying to find a local source for dry soybeans. For the huge bulk sections in Sprouts and Winco, neither of them have soybeans for some reason, and dry bulk food via mail tends to be kind of overpriced.
There's a tofu press I bought by recommendation of Mary's Test Kitchen (non-affiliate Amazon product link), and I highly recommend it. Add a cheesecloth and it's perfect for making firm tofu, and if you are not making tofu from scratch it's still great for pressing out excess water. It's surprisingly high quality for how inexpensive it is.
Edit: if you make tofu with that press keep in mind that you will also need a cheesecloth.
I've only ever done seitan, since you can just knead some dough in water for a while to make it, then add seasoning and either fry or bake it.
I made it once and told someone it was a chicken breast and they believed me.
Definitely a thicker, meatier texture than tofu though.
You can buy pure gluten on its own which has already been separated from flour. If you mix it with water and then boil the resulting ball in a big pot with broth for a few hours, you can make a pretty tender version. It is tasty cut into chunks and added to soup or you can cut big slices and chicken fry it.
Oh yeah, I know seitan, it really can absolutely taste and feel like meat. I've been thinking about making it as well, but it seems like it's very messy.
It's about as messy as making bread at least, and it takes a while.
I use my bread machine to knead the dough since I'm lazy lol.
That's most of the sticky part, and I just wait for the leftover dough to dry and then scrape it out of the nonstick tin. After that once you let it soak in water for a few hours, it stays sticky but holds together instead of coating your hands and then it's fine from then on.
I've been meaning to make those same tiktok recipes for months now but never got around to it. I mostly want to try the chick peas and lentils
TIL that tofu can be made from things other than soy beans. It's not surprising, but it's definitely never occurred to me because soy tofu exists in pretty much every form I could possibly desire. (Nothing like cold douhua on a hot summer day! Stir fried baked tofu slices with ground meat and veggies is chefs kiss for healthy delicious meals.)
I've been makine panelle (here's a recipe, untested by me) which I recently learned is also called shan tofu (recipe here, this is similar to how I make it). It uses chickpea flour and water to make a batter, which is then cooked and dried to make something somewhat like tofu. It's great, especially with a little lime juice sprinkled on top; I haven't used it to cook, but do eat it plain (with lime juice) or on bread like a mini sandwich.
It's interesting to see this come up since I also saw some of the "make any legume into tofu," videos recently. I've been meaning to try it with some red lentils but haven't had a chance yet. One thing to be aware of is that the method shown in these videos is not quite tofu. Actual tofu from soy is nearly pure protein. Soy beans are pretty unique for having a protein that can be coagulated. The "tofu" made in these videos going around around still has all the starch from the beans present. It seems to be the starch in this case that gives the "tofu" structure which is neat. So nutrition wise it has a lot of carbohydrate by comparison. This isn't a bad thing, it should still be pretty healthy since you're basically getting whole beans. But definitely not the same thing as tofu.
That said, it looks like peanuts can be made into a tofu like soy beans! That was the end of my rabbit hole a few weeks ago. The videos I found look basically the same as making tofu and you get a pretty similar result in the end except it is peanut protein instead of soy protein. A lot of videos called it "peanut paneer" in reference to using it to replace paneer/cheese in Indian cuisine. Those keywords should get you to the right place if you go looking for it. I'm hoping to give it a try in the next couple months but have too much else on my plate that I haven't had a chance to try it yet.