Mung bean Paste 綠豆蓉餡

HAPPY MOONCAKE FESTIVAL 中秋节快乐！

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:

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.

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.

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.   綠豆蓉餡   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。