Vegan Steamed Rice Cheese

Prep Time5

Cook Time45

blender (can be food processor or stick blender)
steamer (can be a regular cooking pot with steamer basket inside)
ceramic, glass or silicone heatproof container - you can use one big container, big enough to contain about 2 ½ cups of liquid or use several ramekins like I did for smaller cheeses (the volume in this recipe fills about 3 ramekins) - silicone containers would be easiest to take the cheeses out of after they've cooled down

1 cup cup non-glutinous rice flour (available at Asian supermarkets)
½ cup odourless coconut oil melted (put the jar without the lid in the microwave for 30 seconds)
1 cup lukewarm water (if the water is too cold the coconut oil would solidify again)
¾ tsp vegan lactic acid powder (or substitute with ¾ tsp of citric acid powder or 1 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar)
1 ½ - 3 tsp salt (depending on how salty you'd like the cheese to be

In your blender mix all base ingredients + your choice of the flavouring ingredients til you have a smooth mixed liquid. The resulting mixture will still be quite thin, but don't worry it will thicken up during the steaming process.
Pour your mixture in a heatproof glass or ceramic container. Make sure you leave about 1 cm of space in the container cause the liquid will expand during the steaming process.
Place your container with the mixture in your steamer. Do this right away after blending and pouring your mixture in your container. Don't let it sit around for a little while cause the mixture could start to separate - I did this once and noticed afterwards there were parts of the cheese that were harder, I suspect because the rice flour clumped together while it was sitting there before steaming.
Steam for 45 minutes (make sure there's enough water in the steamer that you can steam for 45 minutes without a problem!)
After 45 minutes remove the container with the steamed cheese from the steamer. It will already thickened up a lot. Let it cool for a while at room temperature.
When it has cooled down you can place it in the fridge til at least the next day.
The next day you can remove the cheese from the container by loosening up the sides of the cheese with a spatula or knife. It should be relatively easy to get the cheese out, though sometimes you have to keep on loosening up those sides before the bottom finally releases.
Have a taste and enjoy!

You can play with the flavourings, other ingredients you could add: