A nightmare on Old Klang Road- Homemade Soy Milk

I made soy milk last night. Ok last night would be an understatement... I hand squeezed soy muck at 2 am after i got back from reading the news. I had wanted to blog about it sooner while the incident was still fresh in my mind- and hair but didn't have time nor energy to get to it till this morning.. I got on to making them as soon as we reached home. I was (in my mind ) channeling a Malaysian Nigella Lawson what with my full studio make up and all. But boy.. was I in for a surprise! 

We had gone grocery shopping earlier in the day and i had grabbed almost a kilo of soy beans thinking it'd be a breeze to make them from scratch! Hubs was a lil excited but he's always happy when i blog- makes no difference to him if its about street burgers or beef bourguignon. I pre-soaked them at lunch and totally forgot that we would be busy the entire weekend and the recipe clearly states that they should be soaked 8-12 hours. By the time i got home last night they were all plump and fat after their 13 hour swim. It was between making soy bean milk at 3am- or throwing the entire thing out 2 days later. So i rolled up my sleeve and thought- how hard could this be??


I blended the beans at a 1:1 cup ratio and strained them with newly bought muslin cloth- ok fine i used baby napkins- but they were brand new. Ambitious me double layered the cloth to get a finer strain. After seeing the soy trickle down one drop at a time- i gave up and went back to single sheet straining. Even that was a nightmare wait. I admit i am a rather impatient person- but at 3am, i think i deserve to be. I scrapped the bottom of the cloth with a spoon hoping to hasten the process but it didn't help much. So i twisted the muck inside the cloth and made a little ball of it and squeezed hard. It was hard work but it did help make the draining process faster- for a while.

After my 5th attempt at doing this, thinking 'oh this is so easy!', the ball of muck i was squeezing- burst at the top and i had soy bean waste shooting out at all directions in my kitchen. Hubs came in upon hearing my screams and found me and my kitchen dripping with muck. I had them in my hair and on my carefully applied HD eyeshadow and god knows where else. After wiping some of it off, i threw away the rest of the un-blendered beans and muck- I had actually googled 'what to do with soy bean waste' prior to being having them splattered on my face- but after that incident i felt the only place they belong was in the bin.

I boiled the milk i had painstakingly extracted and despite the recipe calling for constant stirring- I was cleaning muck of the kitchen and myself- which turned out to be a big mistake. When i came back the whole pot was frothing and bubbling and made no attempt to slow down when i stirred it- and it boiled right over the top and onto my stove top. At this point i had long decided that i was NEVER making soy milk from scratch EVER again and had new found respect for Jenny Hong (THE soy bean lady)

An hour after i started, i sat down to a mug of 'too hot to drink soy milk' and Nigella was the last thing you would imagine, looking at my state. My eye make up had gone panda after numerous attempts of trying to get rid of grainy soy of it, I had huge clumps of more soy in my hair and more on neck and clothes. 


I survived this with 2 mugs and a bottle of soy milk to call my own- and it doesn't even taste phenomenal. I mean its good- if u ignore the bit of waste u might find at the bottom of the mug but it tasted like soy milk. The kind i can get a huge bottle for 6 ringgit. Granted it tasted less diluted but i would trade in my soy milk for a minimally diluted one anytime of the day if it means i get out of it without beans in my face and hair. 


So unless my husband asks for this on his deathbed- i am never again bringing soy beans into my kitchen for the purpose of making soy milk. If any of you are crazy enough to attempt making this- i suggest u cover you entire kitchen floor, cabinet, fridge, microwave, counter top and yourself before milking it ok. I didn't follow any exact recipe- just went with gut instinct


1 kg soy beans
Enough water for a 1:1 ratio with beans
Sugar to taste


1. Pre soak soy beans for 8-12 hours and blend with water
2. Strain using cloth strainer as the metal sieve isn't fine enough to hold muck
3. Boil with some pandan leaves if you have- but i didnt
4. DO NOT STOP STIRRING
5. Only add sugar once soy milk has come to a boil


So there you have it! A recipe for disaster! Let me know if any of you actually had the bravery to try making this ok! Have a happy weekend!!