[Sca-cooks] Almond Milk...place to find it

[Susan Fox-Davis]

"Laura C. Minnick" wrote:

> Jaime Declet wrote:
>
> > That is the reason why I was asking because I had always thought that almond milk was watery and cloudy unlike coconut milk.  Coconut milk comes out very thick and rich in fat, and if you do not dilute it too much it can be as thick a cream.
>
> Ah! Yes, except- the first couple of squeezings that be quite rich in
> appearance. When it gets thinner you know you are getting nearer the end
> of what you can get out of that batch of almonds. Then you stir it all
> together. I like mine to be about like 2% milk. You can tell also by
> what the almonds taste like. If they still taste like almosds- have
> flavor- there's another squeeze in them. It they truly taste like
> sawdust, you're done!
>
> Coconut milk has a different array of fats, of course. And I'll never
> forget the day I was at Polynesian Cultural Center (North Shore, Oahu)
> and the guy (someone I knew from high school) hacked open a coconut and
> wrung out the meat. There is this 'water' inside that is good to drink,
> but the 'milk' is another matter. You can cook with it, and he let us
> taste it, but he told everyone (and it is true) that if you drink it
> like milk you will spend the rest of your vacation in the little hut!
>
> Hey Olwen- I've been wondering- Could you uses the almond sawdust from
> almond milk to make marzipan? Or doesn't it work anymore? Just curious.
>
> 'Lainie

I'm not Olwen, but you could probably add the almond lees to cooked sugar and get something akin to marzipan.  You'd want to add a bunch of almond flavoring if you wanted it to taste like anything though.

Funny, my father asked me a similar question this morning about soybean mush from making soy milk.  I got my father a "soy milk maker" for his 73rd birthday last month, and he's finally tried it.  Same basic procedure as with almond milk, but you
have to cook the soybeans first, which this gadget does.  He loves it!  The product is much richer than the store-bought product;  we are just now realizing how watered-down the latter is!  He's talking Rice Milk next, while I'm nudging him toward
making his own Tofu.  Not hard, no harder than making yogurt.  Meanwhile back at the question of what to do with the fibrous mush:  the Japanese term is "okara" and there are recipes for it.  I'd just bet that some of these are usable for the
almond lees as well.

http://www.ellenskitchen.com/clearlight/okara/okara.html
http://www.soyclub.com/history.htm
http://www.recipehound.com/Recipes/1843.html [Ama Okara, not so far from your milked-almond marzipan really]

Selene, Caid