Sweet Red Bean Paste

When you go asian bakery , chances are you will find items with sweet red beans fillings . Growing up in southeast asia , i found one dessert with beans , but not red beans , so this is all new to me also . I thought red beans are only for main dish , who would have thought it’s also for dessert , esp. it’s very famous in asian bakery .

I decided to put my red azuki beans to a good use over the weekend , i thought it’s not going to be hard to make . I soaked the beans overnight . I tried cooking it without soaking overnight , not a good idea . Took forever and still some of them are hard to chew after cooking hours on the stove . So by soaking it overnight i hoped that it wouldn’t take me too long to cook them . I was right , the next morning the beans are growing bigger LOL .. And i started cooking them , to my surprised it’s a lot quicker that i thought it would be .

1 lb of red azuki beans

water to soak overnight , and enough water to cook the next day

vanilla extract

sugar

salt

I really don’t measure it , i just eyeball it and try it as i cook .

Soak the beans overnight , the next day , drain the water and place the beans in a cooking pot , cover with enough water . Bring to boil , then simmer and cover with lid askew for about an hour , maybe less . Once the beans is soft ( easily mashed with fork or spoon ) , then it’s done . If you still have lots of water then drain the beans ( reserve a little bit of the water ) . Transfer the beans into food processor , then pulse and add little bit of water , maybe start with 1/8 cup to 1/4 cup , make sure you don’t put too much , it’ll be too runny . We just need to add water so that the food processor will be able to grind it and make it into a paste .Once it’s smooth , transfer back to the pot , add the sugar , start with 1/2 cup and add more if you need . Along with the vanilla and pinch of salt . Turn the stove on , and keep stirring until the sugar melted and the paste dries a little bit . Store in the fridge up to a week .

This was my experiment with the bread , using bean paste as its filling , it is good , except next time i need to be less stingy using the paste as its filling 🙂 Would have been so much better if i had put more !