pandan leaves

Red Bean Soup 

Is it really a soup? Or is it really a dessert? But why do people call it Red Bean Soup and not Red Bean Dessert? I guess people probably do, just that I have also heard some folks say Red Bean Soup. I never questioned the intention behind calling it, but I guess I will call it Red Bean Broth. Just for fun. I mean who cares right?

Anyway, I have been cooking quite a couple of desserts lately, and this is something that I thought would really rock as an inclusion into my pseudo recipe e-book that I intend to release at a future date. A blogger’s got to make some money somewhere down the road right?

Anyhoo, so I decided that I would cook Red Bean Broth *wide grin* and I would do it the traditional “kick-ass” way that would rock the socks off any old-school grandmother dessert expert. So here goes..

Oh before I start, incidentally I found a pretty good (and short) video recipe of Red Bean Soup that I thought was pretty decent – I think most of us have trouble reading recipes, so a video presentation is needed to help us who are more attuned to visual learning – learn. Good thing is, there are a gazillion videos on YouTube that helps us understand different things easily. This video on Red Bean Soup really helped me, and I am sure it will also help you as well.

When you watch the video, read my blog post and just pretend that it is me showing you how Red Bean Soup is cooked.

 

 

Where I shop?

I do all my shopping at NTUC Fairprice usually, but on this occasion I went to NTUC Finest, and I realised that they have some things that the regular ones don’t and at the same time, the regular ones have the things that they don’t carry as well. Say like never say right?

 

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Organic Red Adzuki Bean (I heard that these beans are better than the regular sized ones)

1 Bunch of Pandan Leaves

Rock Sugar

3 bulbs Fresh Lily Bulb

2 packets Fresh Gingko Nut

100 grams China Barley

 

Method:

1. I know the video tells you to soak the Red Beans overnight. You can follow the video if you like, or you can follow what I did. I just dump the 250 grams of organic red adzuki beans into a pot of water as well as dumped the bunch of pandan leaves into the pot. Turn the heat up and start boiling. Red Beans for some strange reason takes a longer than usual time to break down or become nuah (soften) so if you think that this is going to be a walk in the park – think again. Or maybe take a walk in the park while it boils. <– not a good idea by the way.

2. Boil until the red beans starts to look as if they are soften and the broth becomes a dark murky reddish colour. This is perfectly okay by Red Bean Broth standard. Red Bean is supposedly heaty (is there another way to say heaty?) so with the addition of the China Barley, which actually has a cooling effect on the body, helps to neutralise the heatiness (is there another way to say heatiness?) So in a sense after you add this and that, it kinds of helps maintain-the-balance.

3. So while the Red Beans and Barley are getting to know each other a little better in the now very hot pot. We should also be smelling the sweet fragrant aroma of the pandan leaves (screwpine) screwing with your nasal cavities and arousing a sense of bewilderment that only an Eskimo would understand. Like I said, boiling Red Beans takes a while, especially if you didn’t follow the video to soak the beans overnight, so you got to entertain yourself while the beans dance the cha-cha.

4. Once the beans are almost softened, take out the pandan leaves and discard. Add the fresh gingko nuts and fresh lily bulb to cook. As the latter ingredients are fresh, you don’t need to cook them for very long, especially the lily bulbs. They tend to melt under extreme heat, so you don’t want to have no lily bulbs when you do serve the broth.

5. Add rock sugar lastly until you feel that it is of the right sweetness, and then you can call all your hungry friends to chow down.

Bon Appetit!