Foodjianese |
Food is not my life but it makes me feel alive. I was born in Fujian, in southeast China, and somehow got dragged onto a plane to New York at the turn of my teenage years. (Thanks mom!) I inhaled 3 plates of roast pork and cabbage on rice after sneaking my way out of summer tutoring school (I'm Asian) during lunchtime to gorge on Indian Mee Goreng and Indian pancakes when I was in junior high, so there is no doubt that I LOVE to eat. Cooking, on the other hand, is a recent obsession. I generally do not rely on recipes except for baking because I feel constrained by the scientific preciseness of most recipes. I like to improvise. The lingering taste of a sweet and spicy lamb tagine from a recent restaurant meal prompts me to turn on my stove. The smell of sweet cardamom and rose water gracefully peeking their way out of an Indian bakery seduces me to invite them to my kitchen. Ok, enough about me, let's cook, eat, and share, which is what food is all about. |
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Autumn Sweet Azuki Bean Dessert Soup
Ever since I was about yay big, the one thing I look forward to more than the main entrees when going to a Cantonese restaurant is the dessert soup. Arguably, it could be the reason I choose Cantonese restaurants over a dozen of other Chinese regional cuisines most of the time. Cantonese dessert soups come in all different forms, colors, shapes, faces, you name it. There’s ground peanut puree soup with tapioca, sweet mung bean with seaweed, but perhaps the most common one is the sweet azuki bean (aka red bean) with tapioca and dry mandarin orange slices. I have made a variety of dessert soups before but since I just picked up a kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) from my CSA, I decided to incorporate that into the mix.
I added dried red dates and dried honey dates with the azuki beans and kabocha. This is a super easy dessert to make. Doesn’t require measuring cups, weights, etc. You can pretty much add whatever you want: dried lotus seeds, barley, oats, dried figs, mejol dates, chestnuts, walnuts, peanuts, almonds… You get the point. Get creative! To get you started, try this:
INGREDIENTS
Dried Azuki Beans 1 Cup
Dried Jujube Red Dates 12 medium-sized pieces
Dried Honey Dates 3 pieces
Kabocha 1/4 of a medium-sized kabocha
Cane Sugar Bar 1/3 of a block
Water 4 quarts
DIRECTIONS
You should soak the beans in cold water for at least 8 hours.
Drain out the water and rinse the beans.
Cut kabocha into about 1 1/2 inch cubes. I keep the skin on because I like it and I like to be lazy when I can. *Keep in mind that some kabocha’s skin may be bitter.
Put the beans, jujube red dates, honey dates, and cane sugar into a stock pot. Add water. The amount of water you add should be twice as much as the finished product.
Bring the pot to a boil. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours.
Add Kabocha and simmer for another 30 minutes.
Enjoy!
I like to add oatmeal in the soup. It makes a delicious healthy and hearty breakfast! You can also add a lil’ butter…
