Saturday, September 29, 2012

Mung bean Paste 綠豆蓉餡


HAPPY MOONCAKE FESTIVAL 中秋节快乐!
mooncake
In advance of the mid autumn festival (a.k.a. mooncake festival) tomorrow,I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my friends, relatives and readers a happy moon cake festival and happy reunion with your family.
To the Chinese, especially those staying away from their home town, the mid autumn festival (八月十五中秋节)is a big day for them to rush back to get together and celebrate with family members. The Chinese believe full moon symbolises reunion (月圆庆团圆).
This year, I had made both types of moon cakes, traditional baked moon cakes and snow skin moon cakes. (Click to access my old posts on moon cake making).
I had made 3 types of fillings which were Taro paste, red bean paste and mung bean paste. For the first two, I had already covered in previous posts. Just click on the words to lead you to the posts.
I brought these moon cakes and shared with my colleagues in the office a few days ago:
2012mooncakemaking
In conjunction with this happy occasion, I’m going to introduce another traditional moon cake fillings that I had used for my homemade moon cakes this year – Mung Bean Paste.
Mung bean is more widely known as green bean in South East Asia. As the name suggests, they are green in colour but when their skins are removed, Mung beans are light yellow in colour.
P1090586
Mung Bean 綠豆

When these green beans are left to germinate and grow in water for days, they become “bean sprouts”, a type of vegetable that is commonly used for stir-frying, salad and soup in many Asian cuisine.
Check out my old post of Stir-fry Bean Sprouts with Prawn cutlets 豆芽炒虾球 this is a super fast and easy stir fry vegetable recipe.

Similar to red beans, Mung beans are also widely used in Chinese cuisine especially as dessert filling when made into paste form.
For the recipe I shared, I didn’t specify the measured quantity in details but merely sharing the major ingredients.  Usage ratio is very much depending on the flexibility of own taste preference.
The result of my mung bean paste was a bit dry and crumby. To have a finer texture I recommend to blend it further with a blender just like the red bean paste method. If you wish to have creamier and more flavourful texture, I recommend to substitute water with milk or coconut cream but for weight watchers it's better to stick to water.Smile

P1090590
Mung Bean Paste 綠豆蓉餡



Mung Bean Paste
 
Ingredients :  
 
Mung bean, soaked for 2-3 hours
Water (adding until mung bean in creamy consistency)
sugar (to your taste)
vegetable cooking oil  (optional)
a few Pandan leaves/screw pines tie in knot ( to add fragrance to the beans)
 
Method :
 
1.       Wash and soak mung beans for few hours to soften the beans.
2.       Drain and place beans to a tray and add a few Pandan leaves for steaming.
3.       Steam the soaked mung beans until soft, I used rice cooker to steam about half an hour.
4.       Once the mung bean is soft quickly mash them.
5.       Heat up nonstick wok/pot over low medium heat, add in mashed mung beans and pour in water to creamy consistency.
6.       Stir and add in sugar to taste, continue stirring until creamy mung beans become thick paste.
7.       To have glossy and smooth paste, you can add some cooking oil ( I used canola oil), else opt to omit.
8.       Once the paste is thick, turn off heat and remove aside to cool off.
9.       Keep in container and chilled in fridge.
 
Tips:
-          For creamier and smoother paste instead of water you can use milk/coconut cream.
-          Best to prepare the paste, a few days in advance and leaving in fridge before using for moon cake filings. This will make the paste more flavorful.
 
綠豆蓉
 
去皮绿豆,浸泡2-3小时
水(适量)
糖(你的口味)
蔬菜烹调油(可选)
几片斑兰叶以添加绿豆的香味

方法:

1
。洗净去皮绿豆,浸泡几个小时以软化绿豆。
2
。将绿豆排水倒入一个蒸盘,并加上几片斑兰叶蒸。
3
。蒸绿豆至软身,我用电饭煲蒸约半小时。
4
。一旦绿豆软化,尽快捣烂他们。
5
。烧热不沾炒锅/锅,低中火,倒入绿豆泥,慢慢加入适量水,不断翻炒。
6
。加入砂糖调味,继续搅拌,转中小火加热并不断翻炒搅拌均匀直到绿豆泥逐渐稠厚。
7
。你可以添加一些烹调油(我用菜籽油)使绿豆泥有光泽和光滑的糊状,也 可忽略。
8
。随着水分不断挥发,绿豆泥会比较干稠厚就可以关火了。
9
。馅冷却后即可使用容器保存冷藏在冰箱。

温馨提示:
你可以用牛奶/椰浆代替水,豆蓉会更香滑。
假如做豆蓉月饼馅料,那最好提前几天准备豆蓉,保留在冰箱这将会使豆蓉更可口。
 








10 comments:

  1. Hi Yin, long time no see! Good to be back & seeing your recipes. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy mid autumn festival!

    You won't believe Yin. I thought about you yesterday!

    Just give me three four days more! Will read the whole thing here and comment on the cakes! They look lovely!

    Hey, am on Twitter as GOAgaga. Pl follow me. Am following you right away. GOAgaga is my vacation rental in Goa India. Am busy marketing it. The site name is goagagaholiday.weebly.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Thoma:
      Glad that you are busy with your own business running a beautiful 18 apartments holiday home. Already checked out the site, very nice building and pool. Goa is one of my target travel destination, will keep you in mind if we finally materialise the trip.

      Delete
  3. Howdy Yin! Wishing you a very Happy Mid Autumn Festival as well, dear. How wonderful it is to make your own mooncakes...much cheaper & fresh. I'm sure your kids very love every bit of them. Kudos! Enjoy & have a fabulous time.
    Kristy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kristy:
      Thanks. Sending same wishes to you too. I know you also made your own mooncakes. You are more creative than me, I'm still pretty much learning stage on mooncakes.

      Delete
  4. HI Yin,
    Happy Mid Autumn festival!! I have never made/bake a mooncake before but i think i should start making my own next year coz store bought are just too sweet for my taste. Oh yeah.. just a question, how do you remove the skin of the green beans??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sylvia:
      Bon de vous voir :-)
      You are right, generally on the off the shelf mooncakes are all very sweet, too sweet instead that prompted me to make my own.
      Do try to make them not difficult at all.
      For making paste, you need to get mung beans that already skin off. They do sell ready peel off mung beans in yellow and they are half in shape and yellow color instead of round green beans when they are with skin. Look for the name of Mung beans in asian shop, hope in France you get to see them.

      Delete
  5. Shirley:
    Thanks, good to have you back too. Yes, glad to have sometime to be back in action again :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I always wondered how the Moon Cakes are made, now I know and will try, I love your Blog thank you very much

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Country Gourmet Traveler:
      My pleasure to have a professional chef dropping over. Thanks for your kind words. I just visited your site very informative, envy of you having the chances traveling around and doing what you love.

      Delete

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