Red Bean Soup
When Polly came over, I decided to make a simple Red Bean Soup to share. The Read Bean Soup is a thick sweet soup made by boiling the red azuki beans until they are all softened and mushy. It is generally served as a sweet dessert after dinner.
Chinese like this dish because the vibrant color of red signifies happiness and luck. For this reason, it is always present at special celebrations such as weddings, birthdays and most of all in Chinese New Year.
Cooking this is simple and takes about two hours of boiling. For best result, I soak it at least four hours or preferably overnight. The ingredients are as follows:
- 1 cup of dried red azuki beans
- 1 slab of brown sugar (or use 1/2 cup of granulated sugar)
- 1 piece of dried tangerine skin (for a tangy flavour)
- A handful of sagi seeds (for chewy texture)
I did not include lotus seed because I do not have it on hand. I suggest that you add a quarter cup of dried lotus seed (soaked for 12 hours) to the ingredients. The lotus seed will create a dramatic contrast in colour and texture.
Here are the close-up look of ingredients that I used to make about six bowls of red bean soup. To cook, throw all the ingredients into a pot of 8-10 cups of water, depending on how thick you want the soup to be. You can start with the minimum cups of water and add more towards the end of the cooking. Remember, boiling takes 2 hours.
Oh yeah, add in the rinsed sago about 15 minutes from the end of the boiling. You don’t want to overcook the sago because it will break up and make the soup all starchy and overly thick.
The soup may be served hot, at room temperature, or chilled. Care to try it at home? I dig this but the rest of the family don’t care much for it.
The Missus loves this! I enjoy it too, since I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. But I gotta have mine cold, there’s something about a “hot” dessert……
There’s also another good dessert soup with small chunks of taro root, sweetened condensed milk and tapioca which is also great!
Mmm, I love this cold with a little bit of whole milk stirred in!
Hi Kirk: Now that you mention it — and it did not even occur to me before that “hot” dessert is strange in western meals. That is enlightening.
Hi Sally: I am trying to visualize how that dessert looks like. Sounds delicious. Was that bubur-cacar (a Malaysian Dessert) you’re referring to?
Hi Shirley: Never tried while milk but did try using coconut milk. They do make it somewhat richer. Yummy!
It may be…it’s a dessert soup restaurants have if they do not have red bean soup.
I like that dessert soup. I’m not sure if its malayasian though. I wanna learn how to make it- i think it also has green mung bean in it? I’m not sure.
[...] 1 1/2 cups water or milk or coconut milk or red bean soup [...]
I had followed of your method of making the red beans soup according to your instruction on this recipe, but I till could not make the beans as soft like mushy. Even I soaked in overnight or in hot water, the beans still turned out the crunchy type texture. Not as really softt as you can find those sold at roadside stalls. Please explain further. Thank you.
Johnny