Red bean or Azuki bean is a very common ingredient used in East Asia cuisine. It is commonly sweetened and often is boiled with sugar, resulting in red bean paste which is used in many deserts such as mochi and mooncake’s filling or hot pastries, fried dough or simply served with shaved ice or ice cream or even we can eat it by itself. This time I used this red bean paste as the filling for my matcha green tea snow skin mooncakes.
You can purchase the ready made red bean paste from some Asian groceries (Chinese and Japanese groceries). These are very smooth paste as the husks has already been removed. However, now a day we can easily make the smooth red bean paste by using a food blender and actually the husks are very healthy. Home made is always the best option for health when you are not short on time. Not only that, you can adjust the amount of sugar to your taste.
If you have a pressure cooker, it is brilliant. It will save you lots of time during the cooking process. However, I do not have one so I just cooked directly in a normal pot, it is very easy, too.
Prepare time: 05 minutes Cooking time: 50 minutes Total time: 55 minutes (excluding soaking time)
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 1/2 cup (330 gram) red bean
- 1 cup white sugar
- 25 ml vegetable oil
- 3 cups water
METHOD:
- add the red bean in a colander and rinse thoroughly under tap water. Soak the red bean in water overnight (discard all the bad beans which are floating on the water)
- rinse the bean, combine the red beans, sugar and water in a pot, cover with lid and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn to medium heat and cook for 40 to 50 minutes until the beans are really tender and the water is almost gone (or until you see no water on the surface)
- Add the cooked beans in a food blender to well blend the bean. Open the blender and use a small plastic / wooden spoon to push all the lumpy pieces on the side of the blender to the center and close the lid, continue to blend. Repeat this step couple of time until the texture of the red bean paste is really smooth. You can also divide the cooked beans into two portion and blend in two batches and you may find the beans are blended more easily.
