Red bean paste is commonly used as a filling in many types of Chinese pastries such as mooncake, red bean bun, red bean dumpling, Nyonya delicacy like ang ku kueh(红龟粿), Shanghai delicacy such as Shanghai bean paste cake(豆沙锅饼) and many more.

Cooking Time: 60 minutes
Sifting and Mashing: 30 minutes
Frying Time: 45-60 minutes, for 500g red beans.
You may need more time if you are preparing a bigger batch.

Ingredients:

500g Red Bean
50g butter/ground nut oil
120g finely granulated sugar, you may add more, if you prefer sweeter
1 tbsp maltose
2 pcs pandan leaves

How-to:

1. Clean the red beans and pick out the impurities.
You can soak the red beans overnight or for at least 2 hours, though I didn’t soak the beans at all.

Soaking the red beans overnight will shorten the cooking time.

2. Together with the pandan leaves, bring the red beans to boil in the pot, and let it simmer till beans are soft.

The water level should cover the beans with an extra inch of water above the beans. If the water dries out too quick, add warm or hot water only.

3. When the beans are soft and have opened up, take out the pandan leaves and use a sieve to separate the paste and the skin. Use a spoon to mash the beans on the sieve. The skin will be caught while the fine watery paste will pass through the sieve into a pot. Keep the skin.

4. Separate the paste from the moisture with a cloth sieve. The paste will remain in the cloth sieve while the water will drain into another pot.

Don’t throw away the red bean water. Just add in the separated skin and some sugar, then serve cold. It’s healthy and cooling for a hot sunny afternoon.

5. Now, you have your fine and smooth red bean paste. Warm your frying pan and melt the butter.

6. Add in the red bean paste into the melted butter and stir.

7. Add in the sugar and keep stirring. Don’t let it burn and stick to the pan.

8. Since most of the water has been drained away in step 4, it won’t take too long for the red bean paste to dry – roughly 30 to 45 minutes.

9. Finally, add the maltose into the paste and keep stirring. Mix well. The paste should have a dough-like consistency, soft but not sticky.

Recipe by: SC

Related Posts:

- Ang-Gu-Kueh / Ang-Ku-Kueh红龟粿