Glucono delta-lactone ✦

Glucono-delta-lactone

What it is

It is not an acid when you weigh it out: it is a ring that opens slowly in water into gluconic acid, so the pH falls over minutes instead of the instant it meets the pot. That delay is the whole point - it lets soy milk be poured into its box and set there untouched, as silken tofu.

In the kitchen

Whisk 2.5 to 3 g per litre into cold soy milk, pour into the mould, then hold at 85 C without touching it: one stir after the heat starts shears the curd into grains. Charcutiers use the same slow drop to bring a fast-cured sausage to safe pH in a day.

Goes with

Soybean Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Negi Ginger Pork Curing salt (nitrited salt) Paprika

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