Red Bean Paradise

So if you've ever been through an asian grocery store, or an authentic Chinese place, area, people, whatever.. You might've heard of this infamous "red bean" stuff that we people use as dessert. Beans? For dessert?

Well to first start off, it shouldn't be THAATT weird of a concept. Beans are treated like a basic starch oftentimes. Their texture, mushiness (yuck) etc. And besides, JELLY BEANS? HEHEELLOOOOOO! Haha. And vanilla "bean"? So the concept of sweet/dessert with the word bean isn't completely unfounded and exists in even Western food culture. But back to my concept of a starch, many types of starches can be both savory and sweet. Rice pudding is a prime example.. since the basic flavor of rice is pretty simple and modifiable, adding some shuga n' spice is all that you need to kick it up to being a dessert. Same things with beans.

I grew up with red bean soup, Cantonese style, all my life. Its one of the standard desserts that they give out after Cantonese banquets, or something to have on the chill at home for whenever, or to mix into ice cream or milk to make a red bean ice drink. ANything to sweeten it up will do well. J even suggested putting it on greek yogurt.

But until recently, I only knew of it as some bean.. just as red bean. But apparently it has a real name: azuki beans! They're tiny and much smaller than typical beans (more on this later and its implications on the flavors), and are dark red like so:


So to make red bean soup, one washes the beans first, they're relatively clean to begin with, but just for good measure. Then let them soak in water for however long you like. The longer the better, just makes cooking time that much shorter (or maybe that's just a myth). Then into a big pot, with lots of water, and boil. Sooooo simple. BUT from how I learned, not through the hard way, but just being taught, you boil for several hours, more like simmer, until they reach the desired softness.. I like them as mushy as.. well.. cooked beans, but my mother likes a little chew, so you can actually feel like you're eating the bean. At that point, you add sugar to taste. I went through almost half a pound of sugar on my last batch, but it was big.

Another thing you might want to add is some sort of citrus peel. My mom adds orange peels, a little bit, supposedly to offset the unfortunate side effect of beans (you know.. GAS). Perhaps there's an interaction between the citric acid, or some other chemicals in the skin. I like zesting a lemon, finely mincing the zest, and tossing it in with the beans once they're a little more concentrated. It ends up being fairly sweet (to your taste of course) and interestingly, to me it doesn't taste like beans. My THEORY on this is the fact that these beans are so small, so their surface to volume ratio is much greater than normal beans. As a result, its the inner starchiness that gives the bean flavor, and because these have less, less bean flavor! Voila!