Making tofu & soy milk

Today my wonderful Popo came over to my Mum's to teach us how to make tofu! She's an amazing cook and we need to learn how to make all the wonderful traditional Chinese dishes she cooks so that the next generation can taste them... I want to make sure my kids get to eat all the food my Popo made us when we were growing up! Making tofu is surprisingly easy, although it involves using a hell of a lot of pots and bowls, so washing up can be a pain in the arse!! Here's the step by step guide!

Clean beans (pick out stones etc). Soak 1lb of dried soy beans overnight

Rinse several times.

Ladle beans and water into blender 2 ladles at a time and blitz til smooth

Strain mixture through muslinAnd a second time through a finer muslin

Soak the muslin full of bean husks in a little water and wring out with a little water to produce soy milk in a different bowl. Do this a couple of times but don't use too much water or you'll dilute the milk too much.

Place tofu mixture in sauce pan, add enough boiling water to fill the saucepan and bring to boil

Place soy milk mixture in a differen sauce pan, put pinch of salt and some sugar in and simmer for 15 mins.

In a bowl put 2 tablespoons of cornflour and two teaspoons of this stuff (plaster of paris apparently?! WTF?! It makes it set) and about half a cup of water in a bowl.

Pour the boiled tofu mixture into the bowl with the cornflour mixture. Do not stir. Leave to cool and set.

Use the soy husks to make pancakes to fry (don't waste anything! lol!)

mix in a little fried mince pork (cooked with a little soy sauce and dried shrimp), dried pickle radish, chinese chives, 2 tbsp self raising flour & 2 plain, 1 egg, fish sauce and salt. Fry patties in oil in saucepan.

To cook tofu, fry tofu in little oil and water in a good non stick pan.Add light soy sauce and fish sauce. Add minced fried pork and dried shrimps (cooked with soy sauce).

Add a dissolved chicken stock cube. Simmer on lowest heat for 15 minutes or so. Thicken with a little cornflour and water (don't stir or the tofu will break up).

NOM.

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