Lockdown Cuisine Thread

It is almost impossible for us to find premium medium grain sushi rice locally. Without traveling out of state, online sources are the only way to get them. But the price has become ridiculously high. In a big city Asian market, a 15 lb bag was ~$10 back in Feb. Amazon used to have plenty of sellers selling the same 15lb bag for ~$17 shipped. Now, the same 15lb bags are selling at $100 and higher. For now, we have enough bags in stock purchased before the price hike but don't know how long they will last. Maybe a few more months, but what if the shortage continues to next year?

We usually buy tofu off from a friend who runs a Chinese restaurant in town. They usually get a weekly shipment of fresh tofu and other items from Boston Chinatown. Now their business is closed, we had to source prepackaged long shelf life tofu from a local supermarket. But, over the last few weeks, it has become difficult to find those options as well. So, my wife, being well versed in making a variety of foods from scratch at home, started doing homemade tofu from soybean. At least for now, soybean price has not gone up much like rice, and unlike regular flour, it is not as scarce to find it online or in-store. Just ordered 100 lbs of soybean from a farmer in Iowa. Mabo tofu will be back on our menu soon.

 

Wow, homemade tofu. Around these parts, tofu from Shiping (town) is pretty famous. Enough so that Kunming has fake producers

The 'secret' ingredient appears to be high-calcium well water. Could be magnesium also, I've not seen that it is tested. Water like that might not be ideal for drinking. Depends how one feels about kidney stones.

So, what coagulant do you use?

 

I sourced commercially available Nigari from Amazon. MgCl is the main chemical that coagulates soy protein, but our local water source is high on calcium. However, we have whole house water softer, so the water she used is soft water. We bought 25lbs organic soybean from a local store, and she made a few tofu yesterday. She now wants to scale up the operation, so I ordered a few more tofu pressing mold kit.

 

Both Ca and Mg have two 'hooks' which is how they pull together globby proteins that have unfulfilled anions on their surfaces. That two-ness is important, otherwise I'd not correct your formula to MgCl2. At least not here

 

Yeah, I never liked chemistry, although I had to have a minor in chemistry for my degree. Not exactly certain, but Nigari contains minute amounts of impurities from the ocean, that help authentic tofu making. Pure MgCl2 solution would not do it.

 

One can 'curdle' soy protein suspensions with acid, as is more commonly done as milk -> cheese (not rennet cheese). This is a different and more fundamental attack on protein structure.

You might experiment with lemon juice. But not it and divalent cations in the same batch. That might just cause an argument in the world of protein tertiary structure.

 

Sea water chemistry is pretty cool stuff, but I think this is the wrong place to discuss it...

 

We have done homemade cheese many times, at least fresh types of cheese, such as ricotta and mozzarella and feta. But we love aged hard cheese. Those are very hard to make in a home setting.

 

You need a cave for aging cheese. But then you get bats, and viruses, and we're back to lockdown all over again.

 

Before China I thought tofu was either 'firm' or 'silky' Turns out there are many types including stinky tofu. Darn good street food but only if you approach it from upwind.

 

That stinky tofu reminds me of a story I just heard from a friend of mine. A friend of my friend used a grocery service at a local supermarket. She ordered a package of tofu. But tofu was unavailable on that day. The store clerk not knowing exactly what tofu is, she grabbed a substitution package that was sitting right next to where tofu usually sits. That package was kimchi.

 

Cabbage has enough sulfur to give it a 'distinctive' aroma while cooking. Bury it in the yard and fermenting bacteria take that sulfur and run with it

 

This week: Meat "shortage."
Next Week: Freezer "shortage."

 

My DW is really getting into tofu making. After several rounds of home made tofu, she quickly realized that her old Cuisinart blender was seriously under power for making a large amount of fresh soy milk. Our kids chipped in for mother's day gift and got her a new blender. Here comes Vitamix. And it's a top of the line Professional model. I watched how it blends soaked soybeans in under a minute with it's powerful 2.2HP motor. Well, It's not a blender. It's a pulverizer. Tim Allen would approve, "More Power"

 

Didn't know a gas powered blender actuary existed. I thought that only happened in TV. MORE POWER! LOL Of course, my DW can't use it in her kitchen. The linked gas blender has only 26cc displacement engine and producing 2.25hp. Humm, my Honda GCV lawnmower engine is 160cc, but it is rated only 4.4 hp. Something is amiss.

 

Oh, I see. That means my 2-stroke Stihl gas brush cutter must be similar in hp as my DW's blender. lol