Sunday, July 18, 2021

Homemade Organic Soy Bean Milk

Homemade organic soy bean milk is very simple to make.   All you need is a cup of Organic soybean milk.  Why organic?  I heard that soybean is one of the crop beside Corn that is heavily pesticided.   And I rarely eat restaurant's EDAMAME served as free appetizer because of it, unless it is organic, 
Wash 1 cup of organic soybean.  Hydrate soybean in clean water overnight or few hours.  The soybean should be doubled in size and its skin is easily removed when rubbed between fingers.
Drain a few times with filtered water.
 
Add into NutriBullet processor and with enough water.  Beat till you can visually see that beans are well blended into slur like. 1 to 2 min.  Put them through Sieve or beverage strainer pocket over a tall pot.   Depending on your preference, add 2 to 3 times more clean filtered water   Bring to boil.  Do not leave the kitchen - be careful - do not let it spill over.  Bring heat to simmer.  Place a lid loosely and cook for 15 minutes.  Serve hot - Add sugar or server savory.  Serve with Chinese Yeou Tiao - fried breakfast donuts sticks, Sao Bien (Shaobing) - baked flatbread covered wtih sesame seeds filled with braised meat and or with green onion, or serve chill as beverage. 
 
If you have Instant Mixer, that will be good, too.  Because it can process the soybean and Cook the soybean, then, you can strain the cooked soybean milk and enjoy.

As you help push the liquid through the strainer, the soybean paste remain.
This soybean paste can be used to make other dishes.
After extracting all liquid, if you have a fine sieve, pour the soy milk through to catch the rest of the fine soy or put the soy milk through a large cloth tea strainer if you have one.  Pour more clean water through to extract more soymilk. This process will filter out the rest of the fine soybean residues and make the soymilk more smoother.

You can serve sweet by adding sugar.  Some people would add a bit of soysauce or whatever they like.  Serve with typical Chinese breakfast items like fried Yeou Tiao or Sao Bien (Shaobing) - baked flatbread covered wtih sesame seeds (no picture here).




Tuesday, July 06, 2021

July 4th Celeb Fam Cooking

 Wow, We were all dazzled by Amy's cooking.

Beautiful INARIZUSHI
OKONOMI YAKI


OKONOMI YAKI - "as you like it" - shredded cabbage, flour, beaten eggs, bacon, topped with Katsuobushi (dry bonita shavings), Tonkatsu sauce or Okonomiyaki sauce, optional mayonnaise.
INARIZUSHI - each one is so intricately filled with rice, slice of KAMABOKO, Cucumber, Avocado, Egg Crepe, (imitation) Crab, Unagi, Tobiko.
Cooking OKONOMI YAKI
BBQ Prawns and Scallops

Teriyaki Beef Kebabs
Teriyaki Chicken

And there is MITARASHI DANGO with Ground FLAXSEED Mill to add to empty carb for health. And there is the ones with MATCHA or YOMOGI (Mugwort leaves).  Ingredients and cooking/preparation method is the same as previous post's.
The slight greyish green is the MATCHA, and the greenest ones is YOMOGI, tan white ones are the regular DANGO with specks from ground flaxseed mill.
MITARE prepare with KATAKURIKO always give the translucent shine.
The other one is Chinese ALMOND Jello - SHIN REN TOFU.  Making them with AGAR AGAR threads, Lactose free milk, Cook's Pure Almond Extract, Del Monte's Fruit Cocktails in Juice (drain most of the juice), home made simple syrup.
 
When the jello is formed, cut them into squares into the serving dish.  Add slightly drained fruit cocktails, add simple syrup, and serve cold.
 
Heat Milk and dissove AGAR AGAR threads.
The formula in the back of the package instructed dividing the package of 42.5 g/pkg, into two.  Bring 20 bowls of clean water in a pot to boil.  Add AGAR AGAR and stir to dissolve.   Add add 1-1/2 lb of sugar, and 1 can of milk, 1/4 tsp Almond extract.  Transfer to a dish, let cool, then, chill till firm.
 
I washed AGAR AGAR thread in a clean bowl of water till clear.  I used 5 bowls of clean water and 15 bowls of Lactose Free Low Fat Milk.  1+ Cup of sugar - Taste and add more as needed.  *Remember that simple syrup and fruit cocktak in juice would also add to the sweetness.   Carefully bring liquid to boil to avoid spill over.  Stir in the clean AGAR AGAR threads till dissolved.
Transfer to a large flat dish with large surface.  Let Cool, then, chill in refrigerator.

Make simple syrup and open a can or two Fruit Cocktail with Juice.  Chill.   Depending on your taste, you might want to drain some of the juice as the acidic taste might overcome the overall taste.  Add a teaspoon and half of Cook's Pure Almond Extract to the liquid.  

Slice into 1/2 inch squares.  Add chilled syrup and Serve.

A Can of Lychee is added to this one.


Monday, June 21, 2021

Time for MITRASHI DANGO - MATCHA with Ground Flaxseed Mill

 The ingredients and recipes are no different than all other previous posting of MITARASHI DANGO. 
Did you notice in most of the ingredients in pre-packaged Japanese food contain Corn Syrups, Heavy Sugar Syrups, syrups, syrups... OMG.  I wish someone would tell them to stop it.
Anyways, until that is changed, I have to make my own.
Instead of eating an empty carb, I thought why not mix some ground flaxseed mill and matcha.  So, I did.   The result is Delicious!
To the basics MITARASH DANGO recipes, I added 1 TBsp of Organic MATCHA and 2 TBsp of Ground Flaxseed Mill.  Add enough water and  Knead the dough till earlobe smooth.
Use a 1 inch cookie dough scooper to make even numbers of balls, then, roll them into ball between palms of your hand.

Bring a pot of water to a full rolling boil.   Drop rolled DANGO without letting them touch each other. Quickly stir them off the bottom to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Stir and loosen from the bottom of the pot.
Wait for the water to return to full boil.
Boil 2 minutes to come to rolling boil.   DANGO should float to surface as they are cooked.
Boil 3 to 4 minutes longer depending on the original size of your rolled DANGO.  Take one out and cut, if you are not sure.  If the entire DANGO is translucent, it is ready.  If you see any milky center, the rolled dough is still raw.  Cook longer.   The DANGO should / maybe double in size by now.
Transfer to a strainer.  Separate them and do not let them stick to each other.
Moisten your hand and skewer them onto Japanese Teppo Gushi - bamboo skewers.  It can be found at  Amazon or DAISO.  https://www.amazon.com/JapanBargain-1598x8-J-1598x8-Bamboo-Style-7/dp/B00OJVM54U    Normally three DANGO to a stick.
If you are going to make YAKI MITARE DANGO, be sure to place bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes before placing skewered DANGO over the grill.  The other way is just place DANGO in a skillet with ceramic surface, for example, and bake one side brown is an idea. 
Roll the skewered DANGO with MITARE (syrup).  Enjoy!
Ready to make the MITARE SYRUP.  At the last minutes, I found out that I ran out of the KATAKURIKO - Potato starch.  So I used corn starch, knowing that the result would be different.  As you can tell from the photo, whether I cook it for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, the corn start MITARE will look muddy, not translucent.
 
MITARE (sweet syrup for the DANGO)   Double the batch if more Dango is made.
Sugar 100 g
Soy sauce 50 ml
MIRIN   30 ml   (Japanese cooking wine)
Water 180 ml   - separate 150 ml   and 30 ml to mix with potato starch
Potato starch  - KATAKURIKO 20 g  to 25 g   (*or more - test it - DO NOT use CORN starch; arrow root starch is okay.)



The syrup should become shiny and translucent, but with corn starch, it is as good as it can get in this case, but the syrup should be thick enough to cover the air dried boiled DANGO.

Using KATAKURIKO - Potato Starch


The one in the back is Corn Starch MITARE and the ones in the front is KATAKURIKO MITARE
It tasted so good that I ate 10 Dango out of 25!!!