Description

Anko paste– this is traditional japanese dessert, which is prepared on the basis of Azuki beans. But you can meet him not only in Japan, but also in China, which is considered his homeland, and also in Korea. The taste of sweet bean paste is somewhat unusual for us. The sweetness is not as pronounced as in desserts that are familiar to our taste. Although the benefits of Anko are undeniable, because it consists exclusively of beans, sugar and a small amount of salt. No dyes or flavors, only natural ingredients!

Anko paste can be used as a dessert on its own or as a filling for making wagashi(Japanese cakes). An analogy can be drawn with condensed milk, which you can eat with a spoon and stuff all kinds of pies, cookies, and cakes with it. In general, this product is universal.

Buying Anko bean paste is quite problematic, and not all Japanese restaurants offer it, so it will be easiest to prepare it. The recipe is completely unpretentious, and therefore you can cope with it with ease!

So, we invite you to join step by step recipe Making Sweet Anko Bean Paste!

Ingredients

Cooking steps

To prepare Anko we need 200 grams of Azuki beans.



The beans need to be washed thoroughly in running water, for which it is most convenient to use a colander. You will also need to remove spoiled beans from the total adzuki mass.

After the above manipulations, place the beans in a saucepan and fill them with filtered water in a ratio of one to three (one part adzuki and three parts water).



Now we put the pan with beans on the stove. When the water boils, we will place the adzuki in a colander. Then fill the beans with water again (the proportions are the same), and then return them to the stove.

You need to cook the beans for about an hour and a half over low heat, until they are thoroughly boiled. During the cooking process, you need to constantly add water so that the adzuki is constantly covered with it.

This time, the water after the beans will need to be saved and poured into a separate container (we will need it later).



Pour half of the required amount of sugar into the pan with adzuki and place it on low heat for 10 minutes.



When the sugar has melted, mash the entire contents of the pan with a wooden spoon and add the other half of the required amount of sugar. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. You should get a fairly thick puree.



Leave Anko on the stove for another 10-15 minutes, stirring it constantly. You can determine its readiness by its characteristic dark shade. If the paste turns out to be too thick, it can be diluted with the water in which the adzuki was cooked.

At this stage, do not forget to add a little salt to the bean paste.



The Anko is left to cool and then it can be used.



* The paste should be stored in the refrigerator. IN cling film it can lie for about a week, for more long-term storage Anko should be placed in an airtight container.

Bon appetit!

Anko is usually classified as a dessert, but the dish itself is a sweet paste. The main ingredient for preparing the Japanese sweet is a red one called “adzuki”. As you know, such beans are very useful for diseases such as periarthritis of the shoulder joint. Paradoxically, anko first appeared in China, and today this dish is most often found in Japanese cuisine. Bean paste is indispensable in cooking, as a filling for various Japanese sweets(wagashi). It should be noted that if you decide to prepare exotic pasta yourself, then adzuki fruits can be replaced with regular red beans. So, it’s time to figure out in more detail how to prepare bean paste in your kitchen.

Anko recipe

We need about one cup of beans (about 200 grams), about 4 glasses of water and 100 grams of sugar (preferably brown cane sugar). We start by putting the beans in a saucepan and pouring water so that all the beans are under water and bring to a boil over heat. Then cover the pan with a lid and cook the beans over low heat for about an hour until they reach the softness we need. If a significant part of the water has evaporated, you should add water, since the beans should not be on the surface.

After our beans are ready, we need to pour the boiled water - a kind of broth - into another saucepan, it will come in handy a little later. Then we should put some of the beans aside and grind most of them thoroughly. This can be done in any way convenient for you: some use a masher, while others rub the bean mass through a sieve. In the end, you should end up with a soft, homogeneous puree. We need to add sugar to this mixture, as well as the previously set aside whole beans, and mix everything thoroughly again.

The next step is to place all the bean mixture in a saucepan and simmer for about 15 minutes until the puree turns a dark burgundy or dark brown color. The paste should not be too thick, so after the second stage of cooking, you can add bean broth to the mass. The final step in preparing anko dessert is cooling. The paste must be refrigerated, and it is easy to check the degree of readiness of the sweetness - the anko is completely ready when the mixture can be rolled into balls. It is worth noting that bean paste can be stored in the refrigerator for a week.

So, Japanese sweet paste is a unique and unusual dessert that is widely used as a filling in many culinary delights in Japan. Undoubtedly, all lovers of sweets will appreciate anko, because bean paste has an incomparable taste and aroma, which is why the dish will become a real “highlight” of any table.

Good day, colleagues and readers! I bring to your attention today a recipe for a rather unusual Japanese dish called "Anko Bean Paste".

And it is unusual because we are all accustomed to seeing beans in first and second courses, and always salty ones. And to use beans like this, as the main ingredient of a sweet recipe, I think not many people imagined this. And yet, half of the world's inhabitants use this legume as a sweet dessert. Many eastern countries use this paste as a sweet filling for many of their dishes. This is similar to how we use apples to make jam. Likewise, beans are used in these countries to make Anko paste. This sweet paste It is prepared as simply as possible and, most importantly, it contains a minimum quantitative composition of ingredients.

So, if I have intrigued you, then we can start preparing this Anko bean paste. And I will show you everything and explain some incomprehensible and difficult aspects of the cooking process.

We will need the following ingredients, as in the photo below, and you can read their exact ratio at the top of the recipe. Ideally, the main component of this dish should be special small Japanese red beans. They are a little darker than ours and without white inclusions, but from my own experience I will say that in my own taste qualities Anko paste made from our large beans is no different from Japanese. The only difference from Japanese Anko paste is slightly lighter color the dish itself. Moreover, I will tell you that a similar paste is also prepared from white beans in Japan, only under a different name.

1. The longest and most tedious moment in the process of preparing Anko paste is preparing the main ingredient - beans. Since the beans are dried, they must be soaked in water for at least twelve hours. And in order not to torment yourself, it is better to do this at night and continue preparing the dish in the morning. During this time, it will increase in size, and after soaking and washing the beans will become lighter.
Of course, you don’t have to soak the beans, but then you will have to cook them longer and change the water more often during the cooking process.

2. Next, after draining this water, fill the beans with fresh water and bring it to a boil. As soon as foam appears on the surface of the water, drain the first water and fill the beans with fresh water so that the beans are completely covered with water. Cook the beans in this water until they are completely cooked. This time takes approximately two hours. If necessary, water must be added to the beans so as not to burn our dish. The readiness of the beans is checked firstly by bursting some of the beans, and secondly by rubbing one or two beans between the fingers. If the texture of the mashed beans is tender, soft, without noticeable grains, then that’s it - the beans are ready for further processing.

3. And then we drain the remaining water from the beans, rinse them again in running water and, pouring them back into the pan, add all the prepared prepared amount of granulated sugar and continue cooking our dish over high heat. There is no need to add any water. Granulated sugar Ideally, it should be brown, but if, to save money, you replace it with our usual white sugar, then you will not notice any difference in taste from such a substitution. Is it the color ready-made dish It won't get any darker.

4. Cook our Anko paste over high heat constantly, stirring constantly. At the same time, we try to grind the beans into a paste with a wooden spatula. The granulated sugar with the liquid remaining in the beans dissolves and the paste will be prepared in this sugar syrup. At this stage, you can add a pinch of salt to the prepared dish to enhance the taste. But if you forget to do this in the chaos, then nothing bad will happen. :)

Boil the beans in the syrup for about ten to fifteen minutes. The end result should be the consistency of bean paste, thick and sticky. In principle, this paste is already ready and, moreover, it is used in this form in some dessert dishes of Japanese and Chinese cuisine.

5. But if you are not lazy and work a little more, you will get a real high-quality dish. To do this, you will need to grind the prepared Anko paste through a fine sieve, thus separating the soft, tender part of the paste from the rough top layer of beans. By the way, you don’t have to throw away this cake, but twist it through a meat grinder with a fine grid. get an additional bonus in the form of a delicious edible sweet mass.

It turns out to be such a delicate consistency, I would even say silky (if I could taste silk :)), melting in the mouth, a sweet paste-like mass with a fine texture. After rubbing through a sieve, the color will naturally become even lighter, since all the color is in the upper shell of the beans, and we just separated it. But what is more important to you - color or delicate texture? I think I won’t be mistaken if I say that it’s the second!

6. During this time, our pasta will cool down and you can safely roll it into these portioned balls. Just sprinkle your hands with starch, since the paste itself is quite sticky and you are unlikely to be able to roll such shapes without it. These balls are very tender and tasty and you can safely use them as sweets for tea or as an independent dessert.

Or you can use them as a filling in some other dessert, for example, in Daifuku Mochi (I posted the recipe for its preparation here Daifuku - The Japanese sweet dessert is very unusual, but very tasty) or as a filling in sweet pies, as they do in Japan, China and other neighboring countries.

I just want to note that at first time the taste of such a filling may seem strange and unusual. But nevertheless, after tasting it a couple of times, you begin to get used to it and its taste becomes familiar and tasty. And if it comes as part of any other oriental desserts, so the process of getting used to this dish goes much faster, since the taste of beans fades a little in the bouquet of other tastes.

This dessert should be stored in the refrigerator in a sealed container or in a plastic bag so that the paste does not dry out and its top layer does not dry out. This Anko paste can stay there for a week. I didn't check further.

The cooking time for this dessert does not include soaking the beans.

And I wish you Bon appetit and creative culinary success!

Cooking time: PT02H25M 2 hours 25 minutes

• Recipe author:
• After cooking you will receive: 4 servings
• Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Ingredients

• Red beans: 200 grams, (adzuki)
• Water: as needed
• Sugar: 200 grams
• Salt: 1 pinch

Instructions

• 1. Soak adzuki beans overnight (8-12 hours).
• 2. Wash the adzuki beans.
• 3. Place the beans in a large saucepan and fill with water (so that the water level above the beans is 3–5 cm higher). Turn on high heat.
• 4. When it boils, turn off the heat and cover the pan with a lid. Leave for 5 minutes.
• 5. Drain the water and place the beans in a colander.
• 6. Return the adzuki beans back to the pan. Pour in enough water to cover the beans and turn on the heat to high. When the water boils, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer.
• 7. After a while, the water will evaporate. You will need to add additional water to the pan to cover the beans (the water level is just above the beans). If you add too much water, the beans will move and break. Cook for 1 hour.
• 8. Squeeze 1 adzuki with your fingers. If it breaks easily, the beans are ready.
• 9. Increase heat to high and add sugar (~1/3 cup 3 times different time), cook, stirring occasionally. When the bean mixture thickens a little, add salt and turn off the heat. The Anko will thicken more as it cools.
• 10. Pour into a container and let cool (do not leave cooked beans in the pan!). Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. If you do not plan to use the bean paste all at once, you can divide it into 100 g portions. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in a Zip-lock bag. Store in the refrigerator for a week and freezer up to 1 month.
• 11. Prepare Tsubushian paste. Mash the boiled beans with a masher or fork. Add a little water and bring the mixture to a paste consistency. Note: You can puree the cooked beans and water in a food processor. Making Koshian paste. Strain the paste through a sieve to remove the bean husks and make the paste more homogeneous. Note: You may need to add a little water to help the beans pass through the sieve. If the paste turns out to be too liquid, simmer the beans over low heat to remove excess liquid.

Dish category: Dessert
Kitchen: Japanese food
Difficulty: easy
Bon appetit!

Hello to all food lovers!

Let's start cooking - bean paste!

To prepare bean paste you will need:

• one cup of adzuki beans
• 100 grams of sugar (it is better to use brown cane sugar)
• about 4 glasses of water

Stage one:

Rinse the beans and place in a saucepan. Fill with water until all the beans are covered and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat and cover the pan and continue to simmer for an hour over low heat until the beans are soft. If the water evaporates too much, add more water - the beans should always be covered with water.

Stage two:

When the beans are ready, drain the remaining water and broth into a separate bowl, it will be useful later. Then set a small handful of beans aside, press the rest of the beans and rub through a sieve. (You can also use another convenient method for crushing beans, for example, using a masher). As a result, you should get ground bean puree, to which you need to add sugar and set aside whole beans, and mix everything thoroughly. Then place the entire mixture back into the pan and continue to simmer over low heat for 15 minutes until the bean mixture turns a dark brown or maroon color. If during cooking the bean mass becomes too thick, add the broth that you drained earlier. Finally, leave the pasta to cool. The Anko will be completely cooked when you can roll it into balls.

Friends, well, that’s all! Japanese sweet bean paste is ready, now you can start preparing desserts using anko paste. This paste can be used in cooking.