Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spreads, pickling vegetables, fish, or meats, and mixing with dashi soup stock to serve as miso soup, a Japanese culinary staple. Miso is high in protein and rich in vitamins and minerals, and it played an important nutritional role in feudal Japan. Miso is still widely used in both traditional and modern cooking in Japan and has been gaining worldwide interest.
Soy sauce is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae molds. It is recognized for its saltiness and pronounced umami taste.
The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses.
Tempeh or tempe is a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. A fungus, Rhizopus oligosporus or Rhizopus oryzae, is used in the fermentation process and is also known as tempeh starter.
Nattō is a traditional Japanese food made from whole soybeans that have been fermented with Bacillus subtilis var. natto. It is often served as a breakfast food with rice. It is served with karashi mustard, soy or tare sauce, and sometimes Japanese bunching onion. Within Japan, nattō is most popular in the eastern regions, including Kantō, Tōhoku, and Hokkaido.
Soy milk, also known as soya milk or soymilk, is a plant-based drink produced by soaking and grinding soybeans, boiling the mixture, and filtering out remaining particulates. It is a stable emulsion of oil, water, and protein. Its original form is an intermediate product of the manufacture of tofu. Originating in China, it became a common beverage in Europe and North America in the latter half of the 20th century, especially as production techniques were developed to give it a taste and consistency more closely resembling that of dairy milk. Soy milk may be used as a substitute for dairy milk by individuals who are vegan or lactose intolerant.
Stinky tofu is a Chinese form of fermented tofu that has a strong odor. It is usually sold at night markets or roadside stands as a snack, or in lunch bars as a side dish, rather than in restaurants. Traditionally the dish is fermented in a brine with vegetables and meat, sometimes for months. Modern factory-produced stinky tofu is marinated in brine for one or two days to add odor. Generally speaking, stinky tofu is mainly made of tofu. After fermentation of edible mold, tofu can produce a large number of B vitamins, a variety of minerals and trace elements. The flavor of stinky tofu is bitter.
Douchi is a type of fermented and salted black soybean most popular in the cuisine of China, where they are most widely used for making black bean sauce dishes.
Tofu skin, yuba, beancurd skin, beancurd sheet, or beancurd robes is a food item made from soybeans. During the boiling of soy milk, in an open shallow pan, a film or skin composed primarily of a soy protein-lipid complex forms on the liquid surface. The films are collected and dried into yellowish sheets known as tofu skin. Since tofu skin is not produced using a coagulant, it is not technically a proper tofu; however, it does have a similar texture and flavor to some tofu products.
Doenjang or soybean paste is a type of fermented bean paste made entirely of soybean and brine used in Korean cuisine. It is also a byproduct of soup and soy sauce production. It is sometimes used as a relish.
Okara, soy pulp, or tofu dregs is a pulp consisting of insoluble parts of the soybean that remain after pureed soybeans are filtered in the production of soy milk and tofu. It is generally white or yellowish in color. It is part of the traditional cuisines of Japan, Korea, and China. Since the 20th century, it has been used in the vegetarian cuisines of Western nations.
In food processing, fermentation is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms—yeasts or bacteria—without an oxidizing agent being used in the reaction. Fermentation usually implies that the action of microorganisms is desired. The science of fermentation is known as zymology or zymurgy.
Fermented bean paste is a category of fermented foods typically made from ground soybeans, which are indigenous to the cuisines of East, South and Southeast Asia. In some cases, such as the production of miso, other varieties of beans, such as broad beans, may also be used.
Tofu is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: silken, soft, firm, extra firm. Tofu is also known as bean curd in English. Tofu originated in China and has been consumed in the country for over 2,000 years. Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines. In modern Western cooking, it is often used as a meat substitute.
Kinema is a fermented soybean food, prepared by the Kirati communities of the Eastern Himalayas region: Eastern Nepal, and Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim regions of India. Kinema also known as Kinama, which is a traditional food of the Kirati people.
Vegan cheese is a category of non-dairy, plant-based cheese analogues. Vegan cheeses range from soft fresh cheeses to aged and cultured hard grateable cheeses like plant-based Parmesan. The defining characteristic of vegan cheese is the exclusion of all animal products.
The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is a vegan cookbook by Louise Hagler, first published in 1975. It was influential in introducing Americans to tofu, included recipes for making and using tempeh and other soy foods, and became a staple in vegetarian kitchens.
William Roy Shurtleff also known as Bill Shurtleff is an American researcher and writer about soy foods. Shurtleff and his former wife Akiko Aoyagi have written and published consumer-oriented cookbooks, handbooks for small- and large-scale commercial production, histories, and bibliographies of various soy foods. These books introduced soy foods such as tofu, tempeh, and miso on a wide scale to non-Asian Westerners, and are largely responsible for the establishment of non-Asian soy food manufacturers in the West beginning in the late 1970s. In 1980, Lorna Sass wrote in The New York Times, "The two people most responsible for catapulting tofu from the wok into the frying pan are William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi." In 1995, Suzanne Hamlin wrote in The New York Times, "At the turn of the century there were two tofu suppliers in the United States. Today there are more than 200 tofu manufacturers...and tofu can be found in nearly every supermarket."
