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Posted to rec.food.cooking
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What can one do with soya beans?
On 8/15/2015 4:13 AM, dsi1 wrote:
> On Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 2:05:58 PM UTC-10, gtr wrote:
>> On 2015-08-13 21:24:49 +0000, gtr said:
>>
>>> The wife recommends I paw through the Japanese and Korean cookbooks on
>>> the shelf; she's convinced there's something there. I'm too lazy.
>>
>> After asking the wife she went and dug out the books; in "the Korean
>> Kitchen" there is a dish that includes soybeans, millet, italian
>> millet, red beans, short grain rice, short grain sweet rice and salt.
>> All in pretty much equal proportions. This is ogokbap or chapgokbap. I
>> can't imagine the soybeans make much difference in it.
>>
>> She reminds me that we not infrequently get what she believes are
>> soybeans in various panchan plates before a Korean meal, and that their
>> texture is almost always too hard: It's like when cooked their still
>> just a really tough bean.
>>
>> In "Cooking with Japanese Foods" there is mention made that "black
>> soybeans" with 35 to 40 percent protein have "become the meat of the
>> East." (in the book it is an unattributed quote.) The recipes here are
>> for "black soybeans". The only one of note has you roasting them in a
>> dry skillet at medium heat for 5-10 minutes until the skins begin to
>> crack and pop. Then cooked with rice in a pressure cooker for an hour.
>> If done in a regular rice cooker you have to cook the beans at a
>> simmer for two to three hours. Not a very exciting dish.
>>
>> It occurs to me that some of these are in some kind of sauce, likely
>> miso-based and are a staple for New Year's meals in Japan.
>>
>> I think maybe these beans are really kinda useless.
>
> These useless beans are at the heart and soul of Japanese cooking. Without them we wouldn't have shoyu, miso, tofu and others. OTOH, to a Westerner, they are pretty useless - unless you're a farmer, or cook, or manufacturer. The irony is that back in the early 70s, it was thought that soy beans could be the perfect food and feed the world.
>
> OTOH, to the home cook, there's not much that can be done with soybeans. I've been eating soybeans long before they were trendy - they are certainly no great shakes and mostly food for poor folk. It's pretty funny to see my family ordering soybeans in restaurant. I won't eat the stuff myself. They weren't tasty back when and they're still not tasty today. 
>
Mmmm hmmm...
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