Soy Foam Recipe

A good place to get started with molecular cooking is by using foams. Many foams are easy to make and they add great flavor and texture to a dish. They can also be applied easily to many of your favorite meals. Here we will show you how to make a soy foam adapted from the excellent Alinea cookbook.

Soy lecithin foams can be made from many liquids by adding between 0.2% and 1.0% soy lecithin by total weight to the liquid, heating it to a simmer, letting it cool, then blending it until it foams.

Soy Foam Tools Needed

To make the soy foam we take equal parts soy sauce and water and whisk together with sugar and soy lecithin on the stove until it comes to a simmer. Strain it out and let it cool. Once you're ready to use it you just use an immersion blender on the liquid until it establishes a strong foam, about 2 to 3 minutes. You can then spoon the foam over your dish to serve.

Soy Foam Ratio

  • 1 partWater
  • 1 partSoy Sauce
  • 0.048 partSugar
  • 0.008 partSoy Lecithin
The basic soy foam ratio by weight is 100% water, 100% soy sauce, 4.8% sugar, and 0.8% soy lecithin. So basically you take equal parts water and soy sauce then add 4.8% (.048) of the weight in sugar and about 0.8% (.008) in soy lecithin. For example, take 100 grams of water and 100 grams soy sauce then add 4.8 grams soy sauce (100 * 0.048) and 0.8 grams soy lecithin (100 * 0.008).

If you like this recipe you can get more than 80 other recipes from my book Modernist Cooking Made Easy: Getting Started. The book covers many of the popular modernist techniques such as gelling, spherification, and foams. It also explores modernist ingredients like agar, sodium alginate, tapioca maltodextrin, and xanthan gum. It is all presented in an easy to understand format and I think it's the best way to learn about modernist cooking.

Also, if you are just getting started experimenting with molecular gastronomy and modernist cuisine then I highly recommend one of these molecular gastronomy kits. They have everything you need to do many different dishes.

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Soy Foam

  • Published: April 3, 2012
  • By Jason Logsdon
  • Prep time: 15 Minutes
  • Total Time: 30 Minutes
  • Makes: 200 grams liquid, foam amount can vary

Soy Foam Ingredients

Because they use modernist ingredients, these amounts for this component are given in metric by weight. Learn more about how to measure modernist ingredients in this article.

125 grams water (4.4 ounces)
125 grams soy sauce (4.4 ounces)
6 grams sugar (0.21 ounces)
1 gram Soy Lecithin Powder (0.035 ounces)

Soy Foam Instructions

Combine all of the ingredients in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer while whisking occasionally to break up any lumps. Strain through a chinois into a wide, flat bottomed, container. You can set the soy sauce mixture aside like this for several hours.

When ready to serve, blend the soy sauce mixture using an immersion blender until a nice head of foam develops. Let the soy foam sit for 1 minute to stabilize and then spoon it out onto your dish.
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Jason logsdon headshot This article is by me, Jason Logsdon. I'm an adventurous home cook and professional blogger who loves to try new things, especially when it comes to cooking. I've explored everything from sous vide and whipping siphons to pressure cookers and blow torches; created foams, gels and spheres; made barrel aged cocktails and brewed beer. I have also written 10 cookbooks on modernist cooking and sous vide and I run the AmazingFoodMadeEasy.com website.
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