legumes

When I'm really into something, whether it's trying to debug some code or work out a design that won't gel, I forget about everything else, including eating. Then, hours later I raise my head out of the mire and I'm starving and ready to eat everything in sight - usually stuff like potato chips and cookies.

Just in case you missed it, this article about soy that plume linked to in the comments to the previous entry about the anti-soy article in the Guardian is excellent.

There was a report in yesterday's Guardian about the supposed dangers of soy products. I am rather dubious about the claims, simply because some of the 'facts' stated about the use of soy beans in Asian cuisine, or Japanese cuisine in particular, are just plain wrong. The implication made in the article is that all soy products are fermented for a long time in Japanese cuisines, but this is simply not true. Only miso and soy sauce and like products - which are only consumed in very small quantities, since they are quite salty - fit that description.

This is the concluding article of my 3-part series on Milking The Soy Bean. In Part 1, I described how to make soy milk with no special equipment, and in Part 2 I showed how to make tofu.

What's the best way to eat really fresh tofu? My favorite every time is hiyayakko (cold tofu), but agedashi-dofu (deep fried tofu with dashi sauce) is a close second.

In Part 1, I showed you how to make your own pure, unadulterated soy milk. Now let's turn this into tofu（豆腐). Tofu is soy milk that has been coagulated with the addition of a harmless chemical. (Incidentally the kanji characters for tofu literally mean fermented beans, but tofu is not fermented in any way - at least as it's made currently.)

Sometimes I wonder if cooking is an art or science. I guess it's a bit of both. Some types of cooking though are almost pure science. Bread baking for example, especially when dealing with natural leavening or sourdough breads. Making a pie crust or a delicate cake is rather scientific too.

I haven't posted a basic Japanese recipe here in quite a while, so it's about time I did again! The main basic here is the method for cooking sweet rice.

As I have mentioned before, The Hungry Tiger is one of my favorite food blogs. Ms. redfox, the owner, recently posted about a delicious looking lentil snack called kibbeh. Lentils are one of my favorite things, so I just had to try it.

I wasn't too well prepared for the tartine edition (hosted by Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini) of Is My Blog Burning? (conceived by Alberto of Il Forno). I forgot to buy any special bread, so had to make do with regular toast bread and some pumpernickel.