Pandan Flavored Soy Milk – Sữa đậu nành lá dứa

This is my latest version of sweet pandan flavored soy milk made from scratch recipe and demonstrated by three-years-old chef Ethan. Hope you enjoy!

Prep time: 15 minutes and 6-8 ours inactive time
Cook time: 30-45 minutes
Serving: 1 gallon

In years past, I have used the cheesecloth method to strain the blended soy beans but it was a mess and using a Magic Bullet to blend the beans was too time consuming. I have upgraded my tools to a reusable and washable meshed nut milk bag and bought a NutriBullet. It’s a time saver now. (Links to affiliated Amazon products of items I used for this pictorial is at the end of this post.)

Ingredients:

4 cup dry soy beans
1 cup pure cane sugar
1/16th tsp (a pinch of salt)
water
12-24 pandanus amaryllifolius leaves (lá dứa)

Note: My pandan leaves were about 12 inches long.

Direction:

1. Gather the ingredients. I had to teach my little man how to harvest the pandan leaves properly before he breaks and kill my plant I have nourished all year. The key is to have him grasp onto the main stem with one hand and use the other hand to yank one leaf off one at a time with a downward motion.

2. In a large mixing bowl, measure 4 cups of dry (unsoaked) soy beans and pour into the bowl.

3. Then fill the bowl with water. Rub and rinse the soy beans trying to separate the bean shells apart as much as possible. Strain the cloudy water. Fill the bowl up one last time with water to soak the soy beans overnight.

4. The next day or morning, strain and rinse the soy beans one or two more times. As you empty the water, the loosen bean skin will fall out too. Strain the beans in the colander. (I set up a large bowl filled with filtered for little Ethan on one side away from the plug and a large bowl of the strained soaked soy beans on the other side and gave him a measuring cup.)

5. In the NutriBullet, pour in 3 cups of soaked soy beans.

6. Then for every cup of soaked soy beans, pour in two cups of filtered water. In this case, it will be 6 cups of water. The liquid level should be right at the max line for liquid.

7. Cut about five or more pandan leaves in halves or thirds and stuff it into the blender.

8. Blend or “extract” for about 30 seconds! Don’t count so fast!

9. I strained the blended soy bean mixture in the nut bag over the 5 quart pot while little Ethan repeats step #3 to 8 again until the soy beans are used up. Make sure to keep an eye on the little one’s counting.

10. Once finished straining the soy milk into the pot, scoop out and discard the foamy layer on top. Cook the soy milk on medium to medium high heat. High heat will burn the bottom of the soymilk and will gives the soy milk a burnt smell. I learned that from my mistakes. Stir the soy milk occasionally so that the bottom doesn’t settle down and get burn. I cooked the soymilk for about 45 minutes until the soy milk smells aromatic. The smell of raw soy milk is not a pleasant smell to me. Add in the sugar and salt while cooking the soymilk.

11. Remove the pot from the hot stove. Let it cool down a bit before pouring the soy milk into the pitcher. This batch makes about 1 gallon and maybe two cups worth.