Recently my daughter visited her aunt. I called to check in, and asked what she’d been up to. “We’re making pink tofu!” she exclaimed. I had to ask her to repeat herself a couple of times, because it did not compute in my head.
When my sister, Lina, hollered, “we’re making it out of lentils,” it clicked. A few months ago our mother sent a group email to my sisters and me, with a link to a Youtube video about making tofu from pumpkin seeds.
After watching the video I’d ordered a pound of pumpkin seeds to try the recipe, but then used half making ramp pesto this spring (they are a good substitute for nuts in pestos). I lost my nerve with making the pumpkin seed tofu because I don’t have a tofu press.
I’ve made farmers cheese before and pressed it with a make-shift stack of cutting boards and baking dishes. But I haven’t pumped myself up enough to have that adventure again.
My sister used a recipe from the same Youtuber for the lentil tofu. The channel is Mary’s Test Kitchen, and these (and other tofu recipes) are in her Will It Tofu? series.
“It wasn’t actually that hard,” Lina said. “The first step was to soak split red lentils, you’re supposed to use about a pound of them.”
She said you can rinse them too, but she just covered them in cold water and waited about half an hour, then drained them and put them into her blender with fresh water. This step may take two batches, depending on the size of the blender.
Lina said to blend it long enough that you don’t see any whole lentils remaining. The next step is to strain the liquid — the easiest option would be to use a nut milk bag, but a thick cheese cloth or muslin works well too.
The paste that is left in the bag is a waste product. The Youtuber with the original recipes has some videos on how to use this fiber, but Lina said, “I fed it to the chickens.”
Next, she left the liquid sit so the starch could settle. “The starch is another waste product you can give to the chickens,” Lina said.
She carefully poured the liquid into a pot, leaving the starch behind. My daughter talked about how much fun it was playing with the starch.
The resulting liquid contained the protein from the lentils. She heated this “milk” — almost to boiling. Lina said the traditional way to separate the curds and whey was to use food grade gypsum powder. But she used acid — 3 tablespoons of lemon juice.
Once the curds formed, she strained them through thick cheese cloth lined strainer, then my daughter squeezed as much of the liquid as she could, before putting it into a tofu press.
“It’s kind of like making a quick cheese — it’s a bean cheese,” Lina said.
Because they used red lentils, the resulting tofu was pink. However, it lost its rosy color when cooked.
“We fried it up as part of a stir-fry,” Lina said, adding it was tasty, and like a soft tofu. It had a slight grassy note, but not strong enough to be unpleasant.
While I like soybean tofu well enough, I am very interested in making tofu out of other beans and seeds — I enjoy kitchen experiments, and we have a soy allergy in the family.
Maybe it is time I either buy a tofu press or try my make-shift stack of dishes on cutting boards sandwiching the pressed product again.
