Have you ever tried to prepare soy mince and it tasted horrible? Something that reminded of dog food? In today's post, I'll teach you the secret of how to make this perfect protein to replace animal meat in any recipe.
Soy protein is a great option to replace animal meat in traditional recipes such as bolognese sauce, shepherd's pie, stroganoff, minced meat, and even barbecue. That's because it comes in different sizes and shapes. From grainy like the one in the photo, as in cubes, strips, and fillet format. In other words, if you know how to prepare it, you'll be able to cook your favorite dishes without having to buy animal meat.
Where to buy?
Some supermarkets already sell soy mince in hydrated and dry form. I always prefer to buy it dry because it is less processed, you can season it the way you want, and it is more affordable because when you hydrate it, it triples in volume. But even tho you can find it easier in the supermarkets these days, I usually buy it online in bulk because is even cheaper.
How much should I buy?
Soy protein is much cheaper than animal protein and it yields much more too. When properly prepared, it triples in volume and has roughly the same amounts of protein as meat. So before buying it, multiply the grams by 3 and you can know how much soy meat that amount will yield. That is, if you buy 1kg of PTS, you will get 3kg of mince.
First we have to remove the strong flavor of the soy. Second hydrate it with the flavors we want And finally prepare the mince in the recipes
I created this recipe in a way that was easy to multiply or divide according to the amount of soy mince you wanted to prepare. The first step will be to remove the "dog food" taste that this protein has. In the video below I used 100g of dry soy mince, but you can divide the amount of water and vinegar if you want to do less, or if you want to do more, you can put as much as you can in the water. And if you need more, just multiply the proportion of water and vinegar.
First Step: Take out the weird taste
INGREDIENTS:
1 liter of water
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1 cup of dry Textured Soy Protein
PREPARING METHOD:
Put the water and vinegar in a pan and cook until it boils.
When it is boiling, add the dry soy mince and cook for 1min
Discard this water, wash it well, and squeeze it well to remove any excess water.
Now with clean, tasteless soy protein, it's ready to be hydrated with the flavors we want it to have. I like to hydrate my Textured Soy Protein with Soy Sauce and Unsalted Vegetable Broth, but you can season it however you like. The important thing here is not to make this sauce too salty because when you prepare soy meat in a recipe, you will still season it.
Second Step: Hydrate it with the flavors you want
INGREDIENTS:
Enough water to cover the soy protein
Shoyu sauce (the amount depends on the amount of water)
1 cube of unsalted vegetable broth
PREPARING METHOD:
Put the water, soy sauce, and vegetable stock in a saucepan and cook until boiling.
Turn off the heat, add the soy mince and let it rest for 5-15min. The time will vary depending on the size of your soy mince pieces. If it's grainy, leave it for 5min, if it's in a bigger format like a steak, leave it for 15min.
After the right time passed, remove the soy mince from the liquid and squeeze it and remove all excess liquid and now your protein is ready to be used in any recipe like you would use any animal protein.
Now with the soy protein hydrated with the flavors you want, you can use it in recipes like you would use animal meat. In the video below I teach the step-by-step of this recipe and how I seasoned my soy meat.
Step-by-step:
I hope this trick can help you replace animal meat in your favorite recipes!
See you in my next post!