The Red Bean Experiment....
School's out and I've got a week to go before I leave for my Aunt's place! What better way to
waste use this free time than to try new recipes! Recently, I've been following a couple of cooking channels on youtube and saw a couple of red bean dessert recipes there. Omo...you have no idea what watching cooking videos in the middle of the night does to my tummy and brain...especially when you can see it but can't eat it. TT_TT Anyhow, I've been dying to try to make them for myself, especially since they are actually quite easy to make!
Step 1: Buy them red beans!! I got a little confused at the chinese supermarket as to which type to buy. Is it the small green-bean like one? Or is it the big one? At least I knew that it's not the skinnier 赤小豆 which is used more commonly in Cantonese/herbal soups (my grandma and mum used them before...i think). Luckily, there is something called Google, so I think I bought the right one. For the record, it's the big one which goes by the scientific name Vigna angularis, but foodies will probably know it better as the Azuki bean.
Step 2: Soak the beans!! I didn't want to wait 3h in the morning for it to finish soaking them...so I soaked them overnight in cold water. After washing them, of course. I'd much rather sleep in and wake up to pre-soaked beans that are ready for me to experiment on =D
Step 3: EXPERIMENT TIME!!!!
Red bean paste
Since all the desserts I wanted to try called for red bean paste, I had to make the paste first. Basically that means...boil 2 cups of beans in 3+6cups of water, mash beans and add 3/4 cup sugar + a pinch of salt.
1. Add water (i used ~3cups) to 2cups of pre-soaked red beans.
2. Bring mixture to a boil and continue boiling on high heat for 5 minutes.
3. Drain the beans and discard the water (supposedly to get rid of whatever 'junk' there is on the beans).
4. Add water to the boiled beans and allow them to simmer for 1-2h at low heat. As the water evaporates, gradually add some more water to prevent beans from going dry. I didn't feel like checking on them so often so I left the lid half open and put more water in the beginning (~5cups). I probably used about 6cups of water in total and I added the peel of half a clementine towards the end coz I like the citrusy taste it gives
(I'm fibbing, it's just coz i was hungry and ate a clementine).
5. The beans are ready when you can squish them apart easily! Blend them or mash them through a sieve to get a smooth paste.
6. Return red bean paste to the pot and heat it at low heat. Add 3/4cup castor sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt, mixing the paste till bubbles start to appear.
And there you have it! A LOT of Red bean paste to experiment with. =)
Red bean soup
It's such a waste to throw away the water that the red beans were boiled in...so I made red bean soup out of it. Perfect for the cold UK weather.
1. Boil the water that the red beans were boiled in. Add some of the red bean paste made previously for a better texture and taste.
2. Add the desired amount of sugar, depending on your taste.
(I only boiled about 2 cups of water and the red bean paste is already sweetened, so I only added a tablespoon more of sugar.)
3. Allow red bean soup to simmer and reduce till the desired consistency.
Tadah! Red bean soup. Would have preferred having sago in there, but I don't have sago at home...
Red bean mochi
This looked easy on the video...it only seemed to involve mixing, microwaving and simple manipulation of the mochi 'dough'. Goodness. It turned out to the most biggest fail of the day. *sigh* I'm not sure what went wrong but it was soooooooooooo sticky that I couldn't do much with it, let along wrap a ball of sweet red bean paste in it.
Here's the recipe I followed anyway, I'll be really grateful if someone could point out what I was doing wrong...
1. Combine 1cup glutinous rice flour, pinch of salt and 3 tablespoons sugar. Stir well.
2. Add 1cup water slowly to mix the flour and sugar.
3. Microwave the mixture at the highest setting. I needed about 3.5min on the highest setting, but I think that's still not long enough.
4. Use a fork to mix the microwaved paste for at least 3min.
5. Coat a chopping board with lots of cornflour before putting the microwaved paste on it. Roll paste into a long 16in tube and chop it equally for each ball of red bean paste
6. Flatten out each mochi piece and put the red bean paste in it. Then fold mochi in to get a ball with the red bean paste in it.
As you can see, I probably did not set aside enough mochi for each red bean paste ball and I can't get the mochi to cover the paste....so I just placed the mochi at the bottom. -.- Tastes ok, looks not so ok...
Red bean ice-cream (without spending 50quid on a machine)
I've always loved ice-cream, but I can't find one of my favourite flavours here in UK - Black sesame. Since I've got red bean paste, I might as well experiment with red bean ice cream first before graduating to black sesame ^^ The youtube video I was watching made red bean ice lolly instead, so I had to combine a couple of videos/recipes to come up with the recipe below. It's a strange combination using the ingredients from a walnut ice-cream recipe (replacing walnut with red bean paste) and the methods in coffee ice-cream recipe that was made without using an ice-cream maker. Thankfully, the mixture tasted promising enough before I froze it...and it came out ok. It wasn't smooth enough but I think it's coz the ice crystals formed were too big. Which means I need to break up the ice crystals more or something....
1. Add 300ml of full cream milk into a pot and simmer on low heat
2. Dissolve 1/2cup of white/castor sugar into the milk (add more if you have a very sweet tooth).
3. Mix in 1 egg yolk and 2/3cup red bean paste.
(honestly, I just added whatever amount I defrosted without measuring it out...heh. It's about a third of the total red bean paste I made...)
4. When everything in the red bean milk mixture has dissolved and mixed well, turn off the fire and leave it to cool.
5. Whisk 300ml whipping/heavy cream on an ice bath until it forms stiff peaks.
(you can use a mixer, blender or if you really want to train them muscles...do it by hand...)
6. Add cooled red bean milked mixture into the whipped cream in 3 batches and fold it in well.
7. Pour the whole mixture into the container you want to store it in, put the lid on and place in the freezer.
8. Check the mixture every hour as it freezes, using a whisk/fork/spatula to mix up the mixture until it is fully frozen.
There you have it: Ice cream!! I think I've come a looooooooong way since the time I put half a cup of semi-skimmed milk into the freezer when I was in primary school, hoping for ice cream but getting weird, disgusting frozen milk instead....
Red bean pancakes (Dorayaki)
Doraemon's favourite snack!! And now I know why he likes it so much...it's the easiest to make among all the recipes. It's basically red bean paste sandwiched between 2 pancakes. I did a 'test run' first (see the 'by-products below...) before filling the pancakes with red bean paste. =9 This recipe makes about 8 dorayakis, i.e. 16 pancakes in total. I could totally eat the pancakes on their own without filling them with anything ^^
1. Combine 4eggs, 2/3cup white/castor sugar & 2 tablespoons of honey. Whisk well till the mixture is pale and fluffy.
2. Sift in 1cup of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Mix well and allow mixture to rest in the fridge for 15min.
3. After 15min, take the mixture out of the fridge and mix in water (1/2 teaspoon at a time) till the mixture is slightly thicker than pancake batter
4. Heat a pan to medium heat and oil it, using a paper towel to get rid of excess oil.
5. Ladle mixture onto the heated pan to form a round pancake
(about 3inch diameter? I just went by the size of dorayakis I've eaten before in MG canteen...)
6. Flip the pancakes over when bubbles start to form on the pancake. Remove flipped pancakes from pan after 20seconds.
7. Take 2 pancakes, spread the filling between them and you get dorayaki! The recipe said to wrap each dorayaki in cling film to help it keep its shape, so I did that. =D
On top of the normal red bean one, I made peanut and nutella flavoured ones too. Good for breakfast ^^
The non-red bean by-product: Muahchee
Since I've been taught not to waste food, I had to find a way to make the 1st (fail) batch of extremely sticky mochi into something slightly more palatable...hence the idea of making muahchee. All I did was crush a bag of peanuts, then added some roasted sesame seeds and sugar. That's it. Just add some to coat the failed mochi 'dough' and you've got muahchee. LOL. I tried to use the blender to crush the peanuts, but I got something that looks more like the Jollibean peanut pancake filling, so I filled my dorayakis with that instead. Teehee...don't waste food mah!
And that's about all I experimented on for the past few days. Probably ruined my diet and study plans but it sure was fun!!
POSTED BY mysticmalady AT 5:43 AM |
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