The Okara Cookbook: Oat and soy clusters

Monday, October 1, 2012

Oat and soy clusters

A delicious morning cereal with milk, or a munchy crunchy snack to eat by the handful, this smells just divine as it cooks. Put it in the oven and watch the kids descend on the kitchen like vultures! These clusters are crunchy soon after baking, but get chewier as they are stored.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups wholemeal (wholewheat) flour

1 cup Fluffy okara

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 tsp. bicarb. (baking) soda

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup maple-flavoured syrup

1 tsp. vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Combine all dry ingredients well. Whisk together buttermilk, syrup and vanilla, and stir into the dry ingredients. Mix well, breaking up lumps so that none are bigger than a hazelnut.

2. Spread mixture on two baking sheets and bake for 10. Stir to break up lumps, and bake another 10-15 min., until golden. Cool before storing in an airtight container.

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What is okara?

Okara is the Japanese name for soybean lees - the fibre-rich byproduct of making soymilk.

Anyone who makes his or her own soymilk and tofu knows about okara. If you’re not careful and forget to use it, soon your fridge and freezer are bursting with little bags of clumpy white stuff. In desperation, you can feed it to the dog or add it to the compost heap, but this is a real shame, because okara is very nutritious stuff. It’s the fibre your body needs. It’s where the nutrients that didn’t make it into the tofu ended up.

Adding okara to your baked goods – muffins, bread, pancakes, whatever – is a no-brainer, and no recipes are needed for this. Adding it to other “dump and guessem” dishes like soups, stews, and chilies, is also a no-brainer. There are also many traditional Chinese or Japanese recipes for simmered and stir-fried okara. These are delicious, and worth chasing up.

I turned to the Internet in desperation years ago when I got my first soymilk machine, and didn’t find what I was looking for - hence this cookbook. It was originally a simple page, hosted on a public server, and I used to get masses of hits on a daily basis. But times have changed: the Internet is a bigger places, there are more people making their own soymilk, more cooks willing to share their tips, and there are lots more recipes out there now. I hope my collection will be a good addition to the wealth of knowledge out there. Excuse the lack of pictures! The recipes are from the original page - when posting pictures of your recipes was Just Not Done - and I'll add them as I can.

Aknowledgements must go to William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, whose seminal work, “The Book of Tofu”, has inspired me and countless others to turn to soy and reap the benefits.