Thermal Cooker Red Bean Paste 焖烧锅红豆沙

Cooking raw red/Azuki beans to soft usually needs a long heating process. However, with the use of a thermal cooker, the stove heating time can be cut down substantially.  

A few stripes of candied orange peels was being added to give the sweet red bean paste a tinge of orange scent. With the use of an handheld blender, a smoother texture red bean paste can be achieved faster and easily ;)

Yield: about 320g sweetened red beans

Equipment: 

1.5 L thermal cooker,

Handheld blender

Ingredients

100g organic red beans 有机红豆

1 blade pandan leaf (optional) 香兰叶

2 tbsp coconut/vegetable oil 椰子/植物油

50g raw sugar 黄砂糖*

20g rock sugar 黄冰糖

A few candied mandarin orange peels, optional 糖渍柑皮, 可免

* the amount of sugar can be adjusted depending on your taste.

Click the link below for the candied mandarin orange peel recipe:

http://mymindpatch.blogspot.sg/2016/02/candied-mandarin-peel.html

Directions

1. Rinse and soak red beans with about 2cm deep of water for about 3 hours. Or,  cover and place the bowl of beans and water in the fridge for overnight soaking.

2. Drain away the water after soaking.

3. Pour the beans into the inner pot of the thermal cooker. Add water to about 5cm above the beans.

Add a blade of pandan leaf.

Cover and bring to a light boil for about 10-15 minutes.

4. Transfer the inner pot to the outer thermal cooker and cover with a lid quickly to prevent heat loss to the surroundings.

Let the red beans self-cook in the thermal cooker for about 1 hour.

5. After 1 hour, open the lid and try crushing one to two beans with your fingers. If the beans are not soft enough, heat the inner pot over the stove to another light boil. Cover and return the inner pot to the outer pot, and let it stays for about 30 to 60 minutes.

6. After the second simmering, try crushing the beans again. If the beans are soft, then pour about 80% of the red beans soup into a bowl, leaving behind about 50 to 80 ml of soup in the pot.

You can keep the red bean soup collected for a "total red bean bun" recipe.

7. In a separate pot, heat up 2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, pour in the cooked red beans from (6), add sugar, rock sugar and a few stripes of candied mandarin peels.

Stir in medium low heat till all sugar has melted and some water has evaporated.

You can stop here if you wish to prepare some sweetened red beans instead of paste.

8. Use an handheld blender to grind the red beans into a smooth paste.

Try not to dry up too much of the liquid, after you have blended the beans, the bean paste will absorb more liquid. If the bean paste is too dry, add some of the red bean soup which you have saved in step (6) to adjust.

9. Transfer the red bean paste to a clean container. Allow to cool down before storing in the fridge :)