Azuki Paste Or Yummy Sweet Red Bean Paste Food

SWEET RED BEAN PASTE (TSUBUAN AND KOSHIAN)

Steps:

• Gather all the ingredients.
• Rinse the azuki beans and discard any broken beans.
• Transfer the drained azuki beans to a large pot. Add enough water to the pot so the beans are covered by 1-2 inches.
• Place the pot on the stove and bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat.
• Once boiling, drain the beans in a fine-mesh sieve. Return the beans to the same pot.
• Next, add more water to the pot so the beans are covered by 1-2 inches.
• Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, put an otoshibuta (drop lid) over the beans. (The otoshibuta will prevent the beans from dancing around too much.) Turn down the heat to medium low and keep it simmering for the next 1 to 1½ hours.
• Some of the water will evaporate, so add more water to keep the beans submerged, as needed. After 1 hour, check if the beans are cooked. Pick up a bean and mash it with your fingers. When it mashes easily, it's done.

SWEET RED BEAN PASTE (ANKO)

Steps:

• Wash azuki beans gently a couple of times.
• Put azuki beans into a saucepan, fill it with water to 3-4cm / 1¼-1½" above the azuki beans and bring it to a boil.
• Cook for 15 minutes, turn the heat off and leave for 30 minutes with a lid on. Drain using a sieve.
• Return the azuki beans to the saucepan, fill the pan with water to just cover the beans. Bring it to a boil.
• Reduce the heat to medium low so that the beans are gently simmering.
• Cook for 15-20 minutes until the beans are cooked through (note 3). If the beans surface above the water level, add some water to keep the beans just below the water level (note 4). Remove the scum as it surfaces.
• Turn the heat off and leave for 30 minutes with the lid on. Drain using a sieve with a bowl beneath it so that the liquid can be collected in the bowl.
• Return the beans to the pan.
• Gently tilt the bowl of liquid and drain the liquid slowly. At the bottom of the bowl, you will see a thick layer of the azuki bean powder diluted in the liquid. Transfer this to the pan.
• Add sugar and gently mix the sugar into the azuki beans using a soft spatula.
• Heat the pan with azuki beans over medium heat. The beans should become watery as it starts boiling.
• Cook for about 10 minutes. During this time gently mix the beans occasionally by moving the spatula from one edge to the other edge and draw a wide straight line.
• Check the consistency of the paste: Draw a line at the bottom of the pan with the spatula. If you can see the bottom of the pan and the beans start closing the line after hesitating momentarily, it is the right consistency (note 5).
• Add glucose if using and a pinch of salt, then gently mix. Remove from the heat.
• Transfer the bean paste to a tray. Cover it with cling wrap removing air pockets as much as possible (note 6). When cooled down, store in the fridge up to 4 days or freeze it in a zip lock bag up to 2 months.

AZUKI PASTE (OR YUMMY SWEET RED BEAN PASTE)

Steps:

• Soak beans overnight.
• Simmer the beans for about an hour, or until they are very soft. Most of the water should be absorbed when they are done. Add the sugar to the beans. (You may want to add less than the recipe calls for.) Mash the beans and sugar together or blend in a food processor.

ANMAN - STEAMED BUNS WITH AZUKI (SWEET RED BEAN) PASTE

Steps:

• Making the Azuki Paste.
• Put the azuki beans in a large pot and fill with water. Let them soak overnight.
• Bring the beans to a boil.
• Turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Remove the beans from the pot and drain them.
• Put the beans back in the pot and add 4 cups of water.
• Brings the beans to a boil.
• Turn down the heat and simmer the beans for around an hour, until they're soft.
• Drain the beans again.
• Put the beans back in the pot and add the sugar and salt.
• Simmer and stir the beans until they're thickened.
• Remove from heat and cool.
• Making the Buns.
• Combine the flour, suar, salt, yeast, and baking powder and mix well.
• Add the milk and water and mix well.
• Add the shortening and knead the dough until it's smooth (add a little extra flout if it gets too sticky).
• Let the dough rest for around 30 minutes, it will rise slightly.
• Divide the dough into 10 balls and flatten them.
• Take 1-2 spoonfulls of azuki paste, roll into a ball, and place in the center of one of the flattened dough balls.
• Wrap the dough around the azuki and pinch it closed on top (twist if needed).
• Repeat for the remaining dough balls.
• Let the anman sit for 15 minutes.
• Steam the anman for 15-20 minutes (a bamboo steamer works best). Add a little bit of white vinegar to the water to prevent discoloration.

ADZUKI/ADUKI RED BEAN PASTE

Steps:

• Measure out about 1 dry cup of dried adzuki beans. You will probably have leftover, adzuki beans definitely multiply when cooked. Soak the beans overnight.
• Next day, bring about 4-5 cups of water to a boil, then let the beans simmer for 35-40 minutes or until soft, with the pot lid loosely covered.
• Drain the beans, and measure out 2 cups now that they're cooked. (Save the leftover beans for veggie burger or roasting purposes, or other adzuki confections!).
• Put the cooked beans and 1 1/2 cups of sugar plus a little water into a food processor and puree it until there are almost no more bean pieces left.
• Pour the paste into a colander fitted over a large bowl, and let strain overnight (at least 6-8 hours.).
• When it's all done straining the next day, there should be a lot of liquid in the bottom of the bowl and the paste inside the colander should be nice and thick. It's ready for use now! It can be refridgerated for up to a week, then frozen for a few months for future use.

TSUBUSHI AN - SWEET BEAN PASTE FOR JAPANESE SWEETS

Steps:

• Rinse azuki and soak in plenty of water for 7 to 8 hours.
• Discard the soaking water; place the beans in a saucepan with water reaching 3 cm above the surface of the beans.
• Bring to a boil, then add about 300 ml water, and bring to a boil again.
• Drain beans of all water (discarding water), return beans to saucepan, cover with plenty of water, just bring to a boil, then lower heat, and cook until tender, stirring occasionally.
• The beans with burn if the heat is too high, or they are not stirred a little.
• It should take between 1 and 2 hours for the beans to become tender.
• When the beans are tender enough to mash easily between your fingers, (not all falling apart) turn off the heat; cover, and let stand 20 minutes.
• Add enough room temperature water to the beans in the saucepan to cool them.
• Wait until the beans have sunk to the bottom of the pan, then pour off the clearer liquid on top without disturbing the darker liquid below.
• Add more water, wait for the beans to sink, and remove the water on top again.
• After adding and pouring off the top part of the water three times, drain the beans by pouring the contents of the saucepan into a colander or sieve that has been lined with cloth.
• Return about one half of the cooked beans to the saucepan; add the smaller amount of sugar, and cook, stirring constantly, over high heat, until the sugar has been incorporated.
• This burns easily, so lower the heat if necessary.
• Add the remaining cooked beans and continue to cook, while stirring and adding more sugar if necessary, until you have a shiny bean paste.
• This will thicken as it cools, so it is not necessary to cook the bean paste for a long time at this stage.
• You can mash some of the beans while you are cooking them with the sugar if necessary, but this type of bean paste should have some beans retaining their original shape.
• Add the salt at the very last stage of cooking and stirring.
• Taste to make sure the flavor is right.
• Remove from heat, spread out on a large plate to cool.