The Plight of Sabine, the OCD Whole-Foodie Queen

Dear Tamar:

I make my own tofu. Every block starts out with pureed soybeans that I have to squeeze the crap out of to get liquid that coagulates into tofu. The “crap” I have left after squeezing is okara. I have way too much okara. (I have no clue if I squeezed the protein out of the okara, or if there's any left. I know it’s still full of fiber.) What should I do with it? I've added it to eggs, made okara patties with egg and chia seeds and garlic, added it to lasagna. I dehydrated it and added that to smoothies. But I haven't found the "Oh yum, okara!" factor in any of those. Can you throw some at me? ;)

-Sabine, the OCD Whole-foodie Queen

Dear Sabine,

I’ve been thinking, lately, about overthinking. (Yes, I know.) We all overthink. My overthinking happens on a fathomless scale, a cosmic scale. You know how Malcolm Gladwell is famous for—lots of thinking? He thinks I overthink. Recently, he said to me: “If there’s any way for you to overthink something, you’ll do it.” And notably, that didn’t sound like overthinking; it sounded like trenchant observation. So, I started thinking: If only I could reallocate my overthinking to trenchant observation…I’ve been ruminating it ever since, a cow with her cud.

I overthink on the tennis court—to such a degree that I’ve been bringing David Foster Wallace with me to the court. It’s easier for me to read him on the player Tracy Austin, using the words “blindness” and “dumbness” to describe her kinesthetic gift, and to repeat those words to myself, praying for them to still me, than it is for me to just chase the ball. I overthink when I write. The worst things I’ve ever written have been labored over for hours-days-weeks-years. The best have been written as placeholders, or in a rush on my way out the door.

The kitchen is the only place I don’t¹ overthink. I am the Tracy Austin of the kitchen, dumb and embodied, only cogitating as much as is absolutely essential to the activities underway. (Is it any surprise I spend so much time cooking? Sweet relief!)

I’m going to try to articulate what that minimal cogitation amounts to because it’s helpful in making culinary choices and executing them. I only know it for the kitchen—which is what we’re here to discuss—but I suspect it’s about appropriate for tennis and writing and racing sports cars and most other things we do, too: It is to have a clear mental outline of what you’re after—a constellation of tastes, an idea of how dry or wet, a sense of how soft or separate the final product will be, an image of what it will look like. It is to have this idea, and then to move toward it without changing focus.

I suspect, from the dishes you named, that okara not a staple food in your culture. It isn’t in mine, either. I first read skimmed your letter and thought you’d misspelled “okra.” I did research, learning that okara is the fibrous, proteinous pulp left after tofu is made. I also learned that for every pound of soybeans used in tofu, a pound of okara is produced. And that okara makes up a third of the total mass produced in tofu making, and nearly a quarter of the protein.

Once I’d identified okara, I thought of a Japanese dish I’ve loved at Izakayas—those wonderful casual boisterous bars where you drink beer and eat snacks. It’s called Unohana, Kirazu, or Okara no Irini. You’ll find dozens of recipes for it by all of those names, ranging from my favorite—linked above—to faster, less complex, but no less delicious ones.

There is also a potent, restorative Korean stew based on okara. It’s called Kongbiji Jjigae. I half remember eating a version at a brightly lit homestyle Korean restaurant in Berkeley. I can’t remember any more than that, though—the restaurant’s name, for example, or whom I was eating with.

Both Okara no Irini and Kongbiji Jjigae are tried and true, and I boldly contend that they’ll provide you the “Oh, yum. Okara!” feeling you seek.

There’s one more, though. I recommend it, too—with some qualifications. Japanese and Korean okara dishes remind me of the Ghanian approach to egusi—ground melon seeds. The textures of okara and egusi are similar, as are their protein and fiber profiles. As soon as I began reading about okara I remembered the most delicious egusi stew with spinach, eaten years ago at the home of a Ghanaian cook named Charles Cann. I’ve made the stew with egusi, but never with okara. Yet, with the blind-dumb knowledge of someone able to cook mindlessly and with focus, I know that egusi stew made with okara would be a revelation.

Dear cook, continue to save the various by-products of your kitchen labor. If you can, though, unfreight the practice from your OCD. To obsess or compulse (Yes, I know.) is not the same as to think, or consider, or imagine, or choose a course. It is to overthink, to overwork, to squeeze “the crap” out of. To the extent you can, make a plan, then execute it, letting the crap fall where it may.

1. Sigh. I do sometimes overthink in the kitchen. Just less often than I do elsewhere.