kscans

Chapter 136 - Tofu 2. Production

"I think... the tofu makers in Edo used a stone mill to grind the beans."

He had a stone mill that he used for grinding wheat flour. It was something he had made with earth magic soon after reincarnating... but it felt too big for making tofu. The grain inlet was also sized for wheat, so it might be a little tight for the softened and swollen Soya Beans.

"In that case, it would be faster to make a separate one."

Yuri, as if to say he was completely used to making tools with earth magic, created a bean mill in an instant. First and foremost, he had to try it out to see if it would work. If there were any problems, he would need to fix them, but this also wouldn't take long if he used earth magic. Fortunately, no major changes were necessary, and Yuri ground the Soya Beans nicely.

"Let's see... 'The ground product is called go, and this is mixed into boiling water.' The amount of water... oh... the ratio of water changes depending on whether you're making firm cotton tofu or silken tofu..."

Personally, he preferred silken, but there was one thing that concerned Yuri. Whether or not to teach the method of making tofu to End Village.

He had already given them Soya Beans, and it seemed they were cultivated in some parts of this world as well. However, for some reason, they weren't made into tofu. It seemed common to rehydrate the dried beans with water and then boil them. The practice of harvesting them unripe and eating them boiled in salt as edamame was apparently rare, and Old Man Audel had been a little surprised. This autumn's harvest was so small that it would all be used for next year's seeds. The edamame Yuri had brought as a sample was very popular, and it seemed likely that eating them fresh like this would become the mainstream. However, it seemed there would also be a portion reserved for preservation just in case, and he had taught them to rehydrate those with water and boil them...

"I think... with soybeans, it's more common to process them into tofu or natto, wasn't it? And also as a source of oil."

Natto, with its fermenting bacteria that could disrupt alcohol brewing, was out of the question, but he felt that it might be a good idea to at least teach them about tofu. He wanted to avoid standing out any more than he already had, but to improve the diet of Old Man Audel, Dona, and the others, perhaps he should endure a little. If he asked the villagers, they might keep it quiet...

In any case, the problem here was the shelf life of tofu. Tofu, with its high water content, spoils easily, and as a rule, it should be eaten on the day it's made. However, it was also true that this made it inconvenient to use in various ways. There were methods to improve its shelf life by freeze-drying it, like Koya-dofu, also known as shimi-dofu, but...

"I remember that Chinese tofu's shelf life was improved by removing moisture."

This was the so-called tofu gan. By wrapping it in cloth and placing a weight on it, the moisture was removed, improving its shelf life. In short, it was an enhanced version of firm cotton tofu.

"Considering that, perhaps I should make and test firm cotton tofu... but no, I'll just make both."

With the decisiveness unique to a child, he made two types of go with different water content. There were no problems up to the point of squeezing them to separate the soy milk and okara, but he got stuck at the next part of the description.

"An antifoaming agent... what's that?"

When he asked Appraisal-sensei, he learned that soybeans contain saponin, which is something like soap. When heated, it foams up vigorously, and if left as is, the next step of adding nigari will not proceed smoothly. Therefore, it is necessary to remove this foam.

"When I saw how to make it on TV before, I don't think they used anything like that... Ah... I just need to carefully skim off the foam."

When mass-producing, they can't afford to spend that much time and effort, so they apparently rely on antifoaming agents. Incidentally, one of the commonly used antifoaming agents is silicon-based, so it didn't seem impossible to make with alchemy, but...

"Considering I'll be teaching End Village, it's probably better not to use any extra things."

Under that judgment, he decided to make it by manually skimming off the foam. He thought that would be sufficient since he had no intention of mass-producing it, but...

"Whoa! It's boiling over, it's boiling over, ah..."

He struggled with the unfamiliar work, but he still managed to carefully skim the foam while paying attention to the heat to prevent it from boiling over. At this time, if his stirring hand faltered, the go would immediately scorch, so he had to be careful. The undiluted soy milk for silken tofu was especially prone to scorching...

"Ah... it's no good... it's scorched. Isn't it impossible to do all of this, the heat control, the stirring, and the skimming, all by hand..."

That's not true.

Not just tofu craftsmen, but even housewives at home do it. Well, for the heat control, they do maintain a constant temperature with a stove or an IH heater.

"...Yeah. I'll use fire magic for temperature control and water magic for stirring. If it's just a matter of maintaining a constant state, I probably won't need any complicated adjustments."

Once he got used to it, he could probably do it by hand, but it seemed the hurdle was too high for a beginner child to do right off the bat. He gave up and decided to use magic. The question of whether parallel casting of magic was more difficult didn't even occur to him. Well, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

After skimming most of it off, he moved on to adding the nigari.

"Let's see... for the silken tofu, I just put it in the mold like this and let it set. For the firm cotton tofu... I take it out when it has set a little, and pour it into a mold lined with cloth to set, is that right."

There were no particular troubles in the subsequent steps, he almost crushed the firm cotton tofu with a weight that was too heavy, but it was a near miss so no problem, and two types of tofu were completed.

"...It's a bit late to be thinking about this, but I seem to recall being told that water quality is important for making tofu..."

He remembered an important condition after it was already done, but he decided to treat it all as part of the experiment and moved on to tasting. He wasn't trying to deceive himself. No, not at all.

"...Yeah, yeah, for a first try, I'd say it's pretty good."

Perhaps his evaluation was lenient because it was the first time he had eaten it in five years, but still, the cold tofu after so long felt exceptionally delicious. He tried eating it with fermented meat paste instead of soy sauce, and this too was quite a treat.

"But... whether the villagers will accept this taste and texture... I'm not sure about that."

There was also tofu steak or dengaku-yaki, but without miso or soy sauce, he wasn't confident it would turn out delicious. It could be used as an ingredient in a soup like yudofu, but the flavor might still be too bland. Well, Yuri didn't need to worry about it that much, but it's human nature to want others to think the taste of your homeland is delicious. As Yuri pondered what to do, he remembered that among the things he ate as snacks with alcohol in his past life, there were processed tofu products. Two types, in fact. One of them, "tofuyo," was, if he remembered correctly, tofu pickled in either awamori or shochu with koji. He had neither on hand, so that was impossible. But the other one...

"I think... it was tofu pickled in salt. It was like cheese and wasn't bad. They called it salted tofu..."