Coagulation

I didn’t know the word “coagulation” before my plan of making tofu myself. I could have encountered it in a description of a blood clot, but no, I haven’t. I am not very interested in books with gory details and probably that’s why I’ve missed a whole pile of words concerning the behavior of blood. Anyway, I’ve decided to make some tofu pudding myself, and if that’s successful, I might proceed to making tofu one day. Both requires coagulation. While the former is a rather simpler process, the later one needs more utensils and weights to put pressure on.

I could have gone to one of the Asian stores to get them, but I have to say the taste is not completely to my liking and the texture is a little too watery, especially when I mix in soy sauce and vinegar. By the way, I’ve got this wonderful vinegar from Trader Joe’s and I can just imagine how good it will be when it is added into the homemade soy pudding.

Actually I’ve tried to make soy pudding for years, but with no success. First, I obtained a big container of Nigari from Amazon which claims that it can make thousands of pounds of tofu. There’s no smaller portion on sale and I was forced to buy a big 0.8 pound of it. It doesn’t work at all, no coagulation at all, and I wasted a pot of soy milk I made from soybean. In a pang of fury, I threw away all the rest of the Nigari. The fledgling plan was thus abandoned and I was seriously discouraged. I guess I could have tried the second time, but my passion for cooking has been dwindling in recent years. A second try requires certain kind of enthusiasm and persistence, which I don’t possess. Also the rash decision of throwing it away made the second try impossible.

After the memory of my failure faded, the idea of soybean pudding resurfaced again. This time I was thinking of making it with gelatin, which I bought in Wegman’s, the unflavored version. And the coagulation process went so well that soymilk is transformed to a big smooth gluey substance, which can only be broken in when a spoon is pressed hard on it. It’s wonderful, but it’s too hard a texture for soybean pudding.

Now it’s the third time when the soybean itch comes. This time I am going to get gypsum from Amazon. Let’s wait and see.