Sweetened Red Bean and Mung Bean Soup

Sweetened Red Bean and Mung Bean Soup with Coconut Milk


Sweetened Red Bean and Mung Bean Soup without Coconut Milk

I like dessert especially for tea time. Last weekend, I hosted a small gathering for my son’s play group and I decided to cook something sweet for everyone to enjoy. Sweetened Red Bean and Mung Bean soup was my first creation for everyone. According to Chinese, red bead has the warming effect to the body and mung bean on the other hand has the cooling effect. So every time when my family cooks this dessert, they love combine both together to get a neutral version of the dessert. In South East Asia, we also love to add some fresh coconut milk to most of the dessert to make it richer and creamier taste. So I prepared a separate bowl of coconut milk for those who love to enjoy more complex flavor of the dessert.

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup of mung bean
• 1 cup of red bean
• ¼ cup of tapioca
• 1 medium piece dried tangerine peel (not display in the picture)
• Rock sugars
• Optional Screwed pine leaves (pandan leaves)
• 8 cups of water

Optional coconut milk:

• Mix coconut milk powder with some warm water to make a thick coconut milk consistency
• Add a small dash of salt

Rice Cooker method (my no fuss version cooking method – Multi-functional Rice Cooker):

• Combine red beans, tangerine peel, screwed pine leaves and water into the pot.
• Set the rice cooker to slow cook soup option for 3 hours and press cook button. You are all set for the first hour.

…an hour later..

• Add mung bean to the soup and give it a few stir and let the rice cooker do the job for you for the remaining 2 hours.

… ½ hour before done..

• Check the soup to make sure all the beans are soft and cooked, add more water if needed.
• Finally, add tapioca, and rock sugars to taste and let it cook for another 15 minutes to make sure the tapioca turn from white to clean and all the rock sugar are dissolved.

Traditional Method:

• Combine red beans, tangerine peel, screwed pine leaves and water into the pot, bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to simmer, cook uncovered till beans started to get tender (about 1 hour)
• Add mung bean to the soup and continue cook for another hour or until all beans are tender.
• Add tapioca and rock sugar cook until the tapioca turn from white to clean and all the rock sugar are dissolved.