Soya, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

Earlier this week, I was cooking a meal which contained some really delicious crispy stir fried tofu with veggies and edamame beans, knowing that I had a creamy chocolate tofu pudding in the fridge for dessert. It suddenly dawned on me that soya really is an incredible food. That’s three portions in one meal, each being wonderfully different from the other.

Adored by vegans, but maligned by many, soya has so many health benefits, being associated with improved cardiac health, a reduced risk of some cancers, obesity and type 2 diabetes. It can even help with symptoms of menopause, and no, it doesn’t, like many critics would have you believe, result in feminisation when consumed by males.

I promise I’ll write in more detail about the health benefits of soya, but for now, let this be my love letter to the stuff. So, let me tell you just how I love soya, and count some of the ways I’ve enjoyed it recently.

1. Crispy tofu

I mentioned this earlier, because this is a regular way of eating tofu in our house. For crispy tofu, I buy an extra firm block, drain it and pat it dry, before cutting it into bite-size cubes. I pop a few tablespoons of cornflour onto a plate and sprinkle in some spices and seasoning, the flavours of which depend on what kind of cuisine we’re eating for that particular meal. I heat oil in a pan, poured to a depth of around 1cm, over a medium flame. The tofu cubes are tossed in the seasoned flour before frying them in the hot oil until crispy and slightly browned. Delicious!

2. Miso

Miso, fermented soya bean paste, is really popular in Japanese cooking, but to be honest, a small spoonful can add a wonderful umami flavour to many other types of dishes. I was lucky enough to have a lovely colleague make a plate of delicious vegan brownies for one of our clinical meetings, and the secret ingredient was miso. They were incredible! It also goes into a personal favourite of one of my own dishes, Puy Lentil Cottage Pie, and it’s great in a simple miso soup, or included in recipes for fried rice.

3. Edamame

Edamame are delicious young soya beans, harvested before they ripen. They can be bought in large bags, from the freezer section of most supermarkets, making them really handy to use. I like to stir a cup of edamame beans through a fried rice or stir fry, or I steam them for a few minutes and have them in a poke bowl or salad. They offer a lovely big dose of fibre, omega fatty acids, calcium, iron and protein. They really are beautiful little packages of nutrition; it’s just a bonus that they taste wonderful, too.

4. Brown Sugar Bubble Milk Tea

I’m really lucky to have a great vegetarian and vegan restaurant in our village, which offers really fresh, mostly Vietnamese food, but they also have bubble tea on their menu. I was very late to the bubble tea party, and I’m pretty hooked on the soya milk version of brown sugar bubble milk tea. It’s a sweet treat, which doesn’t usually provide much in the way of nutrition, so I feel a bit better about it when I have it with soya milk which has some great health benefits.

5. Sri Lankan soya meat curry

I discovered this delight in Sri Lanka with my family, and I was amazed to find out that everybody eats it there! It’s so common, that there’s a huge section of the supermarket dedicated to various flavours, and the curries come in little packs, including everything you need to cook them. They’re not all vegan, however, as lots of them have flavours derived from meat and fish. When I got home from my trip, I bought a big bag of soya chunks from our local health food shop, and I learned how to prepare it properly so it tasted delicious when thrown into a curry sauce at home. We’ve never looked back, and eat this regularly.

6. Tempeh bacon

I have to admit that I’m a bit fussy with tempeh, but I’m convinced that’s just because I’ve not often had it cooked for me, and I’m not doing it justice myself. But one way I do like to eat this at home is by marinading thin slices of it in soy sauce, maple syrup, miso and smoked paprika, then pan frying it and making a great vegan ‘bacon’ butty (that’s Northern English for sandwich, and I can’t make a ‘bacon’ or crisp sandwich and not call it a butty. Sarnie will suffice, too.).

7. Silken tofu chocolate pudding

This is one of the easiest, most satisfying desserts you can try. It’s as simple as melting 100g of dark chocolate, and putting it into a blender with a drained carton of silken tofu and a good squirt of maple or agave syrup, and whizzing it up until it’s smooth. You then pop it into the fridge to set, either in little individual ramekins, or 1 large bowl you can divide later. It’s creamy, chocolatey, and has all of the benefits of the base ingredient, tofu, meaning it’s full of calcium, protein, and lots of other good stuff.

There are certainly more than these seven ways to enjoy soya-based foods, but these are just some of my favourites. I’d love to read your favourite ways to cook and eat it, too, so please do comment below.