Dou Jiang

Oh boy. I have quite a bit of stuff that I need to pack up and bring home. The most inconvenient thing is my sitar, which is again proving itself to be a white elephant. I've got a lot of other stuff as well, and I can only check two pieces of luggage of course. I think I need to find a big box to pack the sitar case and my appliances in.

Appliances you say? Yup. As many of you now know, I have recently become the proud owner of a Dou Jiang Ji. Every morning now I pour beans and water in and press the button. Twenty minutes later I sit sippin' on a big mug of sweet piping hot natural Dou Jiang. I never liked the soy milk sold in Canada much, because they try too hard to make it like milk. It's not milk; it's milk-like bean juice. You can buy dou jiang from any breakfast shop in Taiwan for about 35 cents a cup. Choose hot, warm, or cold, but it's always sweet. I got hooked, and look what happened. Aiyo.

So, this baby will make a liter and a half of soy milk from about a cup of soy beans (soaked over night). You can also use the machine to make rice milk or almond milk. Tomorrow I'm going to try adding a few almonds to the usual. From the soy milk you can of course make dou fu and dou hua. I think they market dou hua as "dessert tofu" in the supermarkets in Canada. In Taiwan though the dou hua itself is not sweet at all, but is instead served with a sweep soup made of red sugar and ginger. Iced in the summer and hot in the winter.

Well, that's my story for today.